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FOREIGN POLICY OF 

SIR EDWARD GREY 

1906-1915 



BY 

GILBERT MURRAY 



Price One Shilling and Sixpence net 



OXFORD 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 



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THE 

FOREIGN POLICY OF 
SIR EDWARD GREY 

1906— 191 5 



BY 

GILBERT MURRAY 



OXFORD 
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 

19*5 









OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 

TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 

HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A. 

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 5 



A. THE TWELVE DAYS 

i. Diary of the Twelve Days before the War . . 13 

2. Criticisms on the Twelve Days: our Relation to 

France ........ 29 



B. THE EIGHT YEARS 

1. The General Principles of Foreign Policy . .41 

2. The General Principles of British Foreign Policy 

since 1906 ........ 47 

3. The Entente with France : the Morocco Treaty 

of 1904 ........ 52 

4. The Sequel of the Morocco Treaty ... 60 

5. The Crisis of 191 i ....... 63 

6. The Entente with Russia : the Treaty of 1907 . j-j 

7. Persia : the Working of the Treaty of 1907 . 83 

8. Persia continued : Mr. Morgan Shuster as Trea- 

surer-General ....... 93 

9. The Peril in the Background : Our Relations with 

Germany ........ 102 

10. Sir Edward Grey as a Statesman . . . .121 



A 2 



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http://www.archive.org/details/foreignpolicyofsOOmurr 



INTRODUCTION 

It is a characteristic of British politics that, even in 
times of crisis, there are always men to be found who 
will criticize severely their country's action and expound 
sympathetically the case for their country's enemies. 
I think we may well be proud of this characteristic. It 
is one that could only be found in a community which 
is highly civilized ; whose heart is set on honourable 
dealing and not merely on success, and whose citizens 
in general trust one another and are free from panic. 
For these few who protest are not traitors, and no sensible 
person ever thinks they are. They may be right or 
wrong on the main issue ; their motives may vary from 
the purest love of justice to divers degrees of prejudice 
or pigheadedness or personal pique. But they are never 
guilty, and never seriously suspected, of either treachery 
or corruption. No government ever persecutes them. 
No mob seriously maltreats them. They are unpopular, 
but nothing more. And certainly the present writer 
would be among the very last to judge any one harshly 
for being ' the friend of every country but his own '. 
He has too often been called that name himself, and has 
been proud of it. He is not going to blame any one 
for being ' pro-German ' in the only sense in which the 
term can be fairly used ; that is, of being anxious to 
state the case for Germany as clearly and fairly as possible, 
and to help us to understand our enemies. In the other 
sense, in the sense of wishing the Germans to win the 
war, there are, I believe, no pro-Germans among the 
sane inhabitants of Great Britain. 

Yet, while there is no harm whatever, there is rather 
credit, in an Englishman trying hard to make his country- 
men realize the case for Germany, nevertheless his state- 



INTRODUCTION 

ment must of course be subjected to criticism just as 
much as a vehement pro-British statement. It does 
not follow that because a statement made by an English- 
man is anti-British, it is necessarily either unprejudiced 
or true. Controversial feeling is strong. The pro- 
Germans are in a very small minority and have to fight 
hard. And many of them become naturally so wrapped 
up in their own immediate controversy that, as far as 
their combative feelings are concerned, the central enemy 
of the human race is Sir Edward Grey ; next to him 
come the British Cabinet and the most popular generals. 
The Kaiser is to them a prisoner in the dock, a romantic 
unfortunate, to be defended against overwhelming odds. 
It needs great strength of mind for a member of a small 
fighting minority, like this, to be even moderately fair 
in controversy. 

Let us take two plain instances. I will not deal with 
anonymous pamphlets, but will take two published by 
the Union of Democratic Control, and written by men 
of high character and quite exceptional brains, Mr. H. N. 
Brailsford and the Hon. Bertrand Russell. 

To begin with the latter : most decently-informed 
people in almost every region of the world regard the 
German attack on Belgium as one of the obvious and 
important events leading up to the war. We may go 
farther and say that they mostly regard Germany's 
action with vivid indignation as an obvious international 
crime. The reasons for so regarding it are perhaps four, 
(i) It was an unprovoked aggression. Belgium had 
nothing to do with the war ; she was an inoffensive out- 
sider. (2) It was a breach of faith. Germany had pledged 
her word by treaty not to attack Belgium, and not to 
allow any other Power to do so. (3) It was treacherously 
prepared. Two days before the ultimatum, and again on 
the very morning of the ultimatum, the accredited 
German Minister at Brussels repeated this pledge to the 
Belgian Government. (4) It was carried out, according 



INTRODUCTION 7 

to the reports of extremely weighty and impartial com- 
missions, with circumstances of the most deliberate and 
devastating ferocity. Now what does Mr. Russell say 
about it ? 

He first explains (p. 10) that ' a calculated naval 
scare and a General Election campaign ' in England, 
coupled with a continuous stream of attacks on Germany 
in newspapers, ' made men feel the Germans capable of 
any act of sudden brigandage or treacherous attack. 
Plain men ' — i.e. simple persons deceived by this cam- 
paign of misrepresentation — ' have seen a confirmation 
of these feelings in the violation of Belgium, though 
every student of strategy has known for many years 
past that this must be an inevitable part of the next 
Franco-German war, and although Sir Edward Grey 
expressly stated that if it did not occur he could still 
not promise neutrality.' Now I will not stay to point 
out that the first of these statements is inexact. The 
violation of Belgium was not ' known to be inevitable ' : 
it was only known to be a dangerous possibility, tempting 
to any Government which did not much value its repu- 
tation for good faith. The Reichstag did not know it was 
inevitable ; they had questioned their Foreign Secretary 
on the subject as late as April 28, 1914, and the Govern- 
ment spokesman had three times assured them : ' Belgian 
neutrality is provided for by international conventions, 
and Germany is determined to respect those conventions.' 
It cannot be maintained that ' everybody knew ' as 
a matter of course that the Government would do the 
opposite of what it said. The French Generals did not 
know it was inevitable ; or why did they draw up their 
line of defence facing the German frontier, not the Belgian, 
making provision at most for a German advance which 
might overflow into the valley of the Meuse ? The Belgian 
Government did not know it was inevitable, or why did 
they maintain to the very end their tragically correct 
attitude and refuse, till too late, the offered assistance of 



8 INTRODUCTION 

five French Army Corps ? But I will not stay to prove 
in detail that this first statement of Mr. Russell's is, at the 
very least, greatly exaggerated. Nor will I argue that the 
second is gravely misleading ; that will be shown later. 
I will just ask Mr. Russell if this is the sort of language, or 
anything like the sort of language, he would have used if 
England had done what Germany did ? Suppose our fleet 
had treacherously seized Antwerp, suppose a tenth part of 
the devastation and outrage which Belgium has suffered 
had been ordered by our officers and committed by our 
men ? I feel sure that, in that case, Mr. Russell and 
I would have been standing on the same platforms ; 
my language would probably be rather stronger than it 
is now, but Mr. Russell's would be utterly unrecognizable. 

Similarly, in Mr. Brailsford's clever pamphlet, The 
Origins of the Great War, we have what purports to be 
a resume of the diplomatic communications between the 
various countries. Now to my mind, and to that of 
most readers, the outstanding fact in those communica- 
tions is the persistent effort of Sir Edward Grey for 
peace and its persistent evasion by Germany. Delay, 
conciliation, conference, mediation, by any method what- 
ever that Germany might prefer : day by day and 
almost hour by hour the British Minister repeated his 
overtures, and Germany evaded or refused them all. It 
is conceivably possible that Germany may have had an 
excuse. It is possible that the obvious interpretation 
of the above facts may need to be corrected. But will 
it be believed that Mr. Brailsford never mentions the 
facts at all ? Just imagine it ! Suppose for a moment 
ithat Germany had six times suggested forms of con- 
ference or mediation or arbitration, and ended by offer- 
ing to accept any proposal for peace that we might 
make, ' if we would only press the button ', and we had 
refused ! Would Mr. Brailsford have passed that fact 
over as not worth mentioning ? 



INTRODUCTION 9 

No ; these writers are in their way high-minded, 
disinterested, courageous, and often very clever, but 
they are not at present in a state of mind which enables 
them to see or even to seekthe truth. They are impassioned 
advocates, not fair-minded inquirers. They might one 
and all utter the famous plea of their ally, Mr. Shaw : 
' Who am I that I should be just ? ' They begin, quite 
rightly, by looking for every mitigating circumstance 
which can be stated on behalf of Germany, and end, I fear, 
by searching with even greater zeal for anything that can 
be worked up into damaging Sir Edward Grey. 

Now, for my own part, if the reader will excuse some 
egotism, I wish to make a personal explanation. I have 
never held a brief for Sir Edward Grey, and do not 
propose to do so now. It is generally difficult for an 
outsider to form a considered opinion on a complicated 
question of foreign affairs. It is doubly difficult if your 
own bias of character inclines you to differ from the 
persons who have most knowledge. But in me that 
bias of character has been strong, and has resulted in 
pretty definite political predilections. I have been 
unhappy about Morocco and Persia ; profoundly unhappy 
about our strained relations with Germany ; sympathetic 
in general towards the Radical and Socialist line on 
foreign policy ; and always anxious to have the smallest 
Navy vote that a reasonable Government would permit. 

I have never till this year seriously believed in the 
unalterably aggressive designs of Germany. I knew our 
own Jingoes, and recognized the existence of German 
Jingoes ; but I believed that there, as here, the govern- 
ment was in the hands of the more wise and sober part 
of the nation. I have derided all scares, and loathed 
(as I still loathe) all scaremongers and breeders of hatred. 
I have believed (as I still believe) that many persons 
now in newspaper offices might be more profitably 
housed in lunatic asylums. And I also felt, with some 
impatience, that though, as an outsider, I could not tell 



io INTRODUCTION 

exactly what the Government ought to do, they surely 
could produce good relations between Great Britain and 
Germany if only they had the determination and the 
will. 

And now I see that on a large part of this question — 
by no means the whole of it — I was wrong, and a large 
number of the people whom I honour most were wrong. 
One is vividly reminded of Lord Melbourne's famous 
dictum : ' All the sensible men were on one side, and 
all the d — d fools on the other. And, egad, Sir, the 
d — d fools were right ! ' 

What made me change my mind was the action of 
the various Powers during the last ten days before the 
war. On July 26 or 27 I was asked to sign a declaration 
in favour of British neutrality in the case of a war arising 
between the Great Powers. I agreed without hesitation. 
I did not believe there would be a war ; the nations 
were not governed by lunatics : but if by any dreadful 
blunder there should be war, I thought, let us by all 
means keep out of it. During the next week my con- 
fidence was staggered. The thing was incredible, but it 
looked as if Germany was deliberately refusing all roads 
to peace, as if she had made up her mind to have war. 
By the time the declaration was published — it took a week 
collecting signatures — my attitude had changed. For, 
if the war was not a mere blundering disaster, if it was 
a deliberate plot, a calculated policy of the strongest 
nation in Europe to win by bloodshed what she could 
not win by fair dealing, then it might be the duty of 
all law-abiding Powers to stand or fall together for the 
sake of public right. Then came more evidence : the 
White Book first, then the German Book, the Belgian, 
the French, the Russian, the Austrian. They all told 
fundamentally the same story. The statesman whom 
I had suspected as over-imperialist was doing everything 
humanly possible to preserve peace ; the Power whose 



INTRODUCTION n 

good faith I had always championed was in part play- 
ing a game of the most unscrupulous bluff, in part meant 
murder from the beginning. 

I said something of this sort to a Radical friend. 
' Yes,' he said, ' for the last twelve days Grey has been 
working for peace, but for the last eight years he has 
been making peace impossible.' 

Is this a true criticism ? Or is it that we Radicals 
judged foreign policy in part wrong, inasmuch as we 
did not — or would not — make enough allowance for one 
great factor which affected it ? If German policy and 
Grey's policy were such as we found them in July 1914, 
what had they been in earlier years ? 

We Radicals had always worked for peace, for con- 
ciliation, for mutual understanding. There we were 
right. We had argued steadily that no Power could 
gain and all Powers must lose by a European war. There 
we were right. But we had also felt a suspicion that 
Sir Edward Grey had persistently overrated German 
hostility and thereby caused it to grow. On this point 
were we perhaps wrong all through, almost as much 
wrong on our side as the common anti-German fanatic 
was wrong on the other ? Let us try to consider this 
question. 

The general story of the Twelve Days between July 23 
and August 4 is well known, but I insert here, for clear- 
ness' sake, a brief diary of the time. 1 It is not intended 
to give a complete history of the proceedings, but only 
to illustrate the action taken by Sir Edward Grey. 
Those who wish for a complete and careful history, day 
by day, of the negotiations, should consult, first the 

1 In quoting documents I have sometimes shortened a long 
diplomatic phrase, saying ' Austria ' instead of ' The Austro- 
Hungarian Government ', and the like. I mention Foreign 
Secretaries by name : Grey, Sazonof , Von Jagow, Berchtold ; 
other persons by their titles. The numerals in brackets refer to 
the British White Paper. 



12 INTRODUCTION 

fundamental documents : Collected Diplomatic Documents 
relating to the Outbreak of the European War, price is., 
issued by the British Government ; next, such works as 
the Chronicle of July-August 1914 by William Archer 
(Oxford, 1915), or the History of Twelve Days by 
J. W. Headlam (Fisher Unwin, 1915, price 10s. 6d.). 
The anti-Grey version of the same events can be con- 
veniently studied in Mr. Price's Diplomatic History of 
the War (Allen & Unwin, ys. 6d.). This, the first book 
in the field, was naturally somewhat hurried and inac- 
curate, as well as, to my mind, a little morbid in its 
surmises. 



A. THE TWELVE DAYS 

i. DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS BEFORE THE 

WAR 

July 20 

London. Grey discusses with German Ambassador 
situation between Austria and Serbia. Grey assumes 
that Austria will publish her case against Serbia ; 
Ambassador agrees. This will make it easier for Russia 
to counsel moderation in Belgrade. (1) 

July 23 

AUSTRIAN NOTE TO SERBIA 

London. Grey, from account given by Austrian 
Ambassador of the Note, greatly regrets presence of a time- 
limit. May inflame opinion in Russia ; may hurry things 
so as to prevent proper discussion and mediation. ' If 
war should occur between the four Great Powers, it would 
result in a complete collapse of European credit and industry ; 
in the present great industrial States, this would produce 
a state of things worse than 1848, and, irrespective of 
who might be the victors, many things might be completely 
swept away.' He hoped Austria and Russia would 
discuss together any points of difficulty that might arise. 
The Ambassador agrees, but dwells on bad conduct of 
Serbia. (3) 

The substance of the Note, handed in 6 p.m. July 23 : 
communicated to the Powers at various times on July 24, 
is as follows : 

1. Serbia shall suppress all anti- Austrian publications. 



14 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

2. Dissolve the Narodna Odbrana and all similar 
societies, confiscate their funds, and prevent their re- 
forming. 

3. Remove from public education in Serbia all teachers 
and teaching that are anti-Austrian. 

4. Remove from military and civil service all officers 
and officials guilty of anti-Austrian propaganda ; Austria 
will name the persons. 

5. Accept collaboration of Austrian representatives in 
the suppression of anti-Austrian propaganda. 

6. Take judicial proceedings against accessories to the 
plot against the Archduke ; Austrian delegates will take 
part in the investigations. 

7. Arrest Major Voija Tankositch and the individual 
named Milan Ciganovitch. 

8. Prevent and punish the illegal traffic in arms and 
explosives. 

9. Send to Austria explanations of all unjustifiable 
utterances of high Serbian officials, at home and 
abroad. 

10. Notify without delay that the above measures are 
executed. Reply before 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 23. (4) 

July 24 

London. Grey, immediately on receipt of Note, 
expresses great regret at the time limit, and such a short 
one. ' I had never seen one State address to another inde- 
pendent State a document of so formidable a character.' 
Some of the demands (No. 5, for instance) hardly con- 
sistent with maintenance of Serbia's independent sove- 
reignty. (5) 

St. Petersburg. Sazonof (Russian Minister for Foreign 
Affairs) meets English and French Ambassadors. Has 
just seen Note to Serbia ; reply demanded in forty-eight 
hours (of which seventeen had gone). Some of the 
demands impossible. The Note means war, and is 



BEFORE THE WAR 15 

evidently backed by Germany. Hopes that Great Britain 
will stand solid with France and Russia. (France will 
stand with Russia in any case.) British Ambassador says 
he will refer this point to Grey, but does not think that 
Government will promise to stand solid. Advises (1) to 
try to get the time limit extended, so as to permit negotia- 
tions ; (2) to see how far Serbia can be induced to go in 
submission. 

On renewed pressure by Russian and French Ambassa- 
dors, British Ambassador suggests that Grey ' might see 
his way to explaining clearly to the German and Austrian 
Governments that an attack by Austria on Serbia would 
probably mean Russian intervention ; this will involve 
France and Germany, and it will then be difficult for Great 
Britain to stay out '. (6) 

[Grey, in answer, entirely approves of the Ambassador's 
language. (24)] 

London and all Capitals. German Note explains 
that Germany considers the procedure and demands of 
Austria as ' equitable and moderate '. Germany desires 
' the localization of the conflict ' ; any ' interference by 
another Power may be followed by incalculable con- 
sequences \ (9) 

London. German Ambassador has urged Grey to use 
moderating influence on Russia. Grey says that, if 
Russia takes the view which any Power interested in 
Serbia will naturally take, he will be helpless, owing to 
the time limit and the terms of the ultimatum. Best 
chance is that Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain should 
act together for peace both at Vienna and St. Petersburg. 
Essential that Germany should join. (10) 

German Ambassador says Austria may be expected to 
attack Serbia directly the time limit expires, unless 
Serbia accepts all terms unconditionally. Privately, he 
suggests that if Serbia will send a reply favourable on 
some points, Austria may perhaps be willing to delay 
action, (n) 



16 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

Belgrade. Grey tells British Charge d'Affaires, after 
consultation with Russian and French colleagues, to urge 
Serbia to yield as much as possible. (12, cf. 22) 

St. Petersburg — Vienna. Russian Note urges re- 
moval of time limit, which leaves quite insufficient 
interval for the Powers to take steps to smooth away 
difficulties. Also, since Austria has declared her readi- 
ness to inform the Powers of the basis of her accusations, 
she should allow them time to study it. Then they 
could offer advice to Serbia. British Ambassador at 
Vienna is instructed to support this step. (13, 26) 

July 25 

St. Petersburg. Sazonof suggests that Serbia might 
simply withdraw her army, allow Austria to take Belgrade, 
and then appeal to the Powers for protection on the 
basis of the undertakings of 1908. Russia is willing to 
stand aside and leave the question in the hands of England, 
France, Germany, and Italy. British Ambassador begs 
Sazonof not to mobilize till Grey has had time to use 
influence for peace. Sazonof agrees, but urges that if 
Great Britain will take her stand firmly with Russia 
and France there will be no war. 

British Ambassador answers that England can play 
the part of mediator at Berlin and Vienna better if she 
is not committed. (17) 

Berlin. Von Jagow (Minister for Foreign Affairs) 
says Austria means to make war on Serbia, but he does 
not believe Russia will intervene, especially as Austria 
will agree not to annex Serbian territory. Adds privately 
that the Austrian Note leaves much to be desired as 
a diplomatic document ; he had never seen it before 
publication. (18) 

[It appears, however, that the Kaiser, the German 
Ambassador at Vienna (95), and also certain journalists 
had seen it.] 



BEFORE THE WAR 17 

Serbian Reply. (39 ; see above, 4) 

The answers to the ten points may be summarized thus : 

1. Yes ; will suppress all anti- Austrian publications. 

2. Yes ; will suppress the Narodna Odbrana and 
similar societies. 

3. Yes ; will expel all anti- Austrian teachers and teach- 
ing as soon as evidence given. 

4. Yes ; will expel all anti-Austrian officers and 
officials, if Austria will furnish names and acts of guilty 
persons. 

5. Yes ; will accept collaboration of Austrian repre- 
sentatives in these proceedings, as far as consonant with 
principles of international law and criminal procedure 
and neighbourly relations. 

6. Yes ; will take the judicial proceedings ; will also 
keep Austria informed ; but cannot admit the participa- 
tion of Austrians in the judicial investigations, as this 
would be a violation of the Constitution. 

7. Yes ; have arrested Tankositch ; ordered arrest of 
Ciganovitch. 

8. Yes ; will suppress and punish traffic in arms and 
explosives. 

9. Yes ; will deal with the said high officials, if Austria 
will supply evidence. 

10. Yes ; will notify without delay. 

If this answer not satisfactory, Serbia will abide by 
decision of the Hague Tribunal. 

[This reply is entirely disregarded by Austria or treated, 
as a blank refusal.] 

Vienna. Impression that Austria neither expects nor 
desires the acceptance of her terms by Serbia. (20 ; 
cf. 19) 

Belgrade. 6 p.m. Austrian Embassy departs : 
diplomatic relations between Austria and Serbia broken 
off. (23, 31) Serbian Government flies to Nish and 
MOBILIZES. 

1814 B 



18 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

London. Austrian Ambassador tells Grey that, on 
expiry of time limit, Austria will immediately begin 
military preparations but not military operations. (25) 

Grey tells German Ambassador : ' We shall soon be 
faced by mobilization of Austria and Russia. Only chance 
of -peace is for Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain 
to keep together and join in asking Austria and Russia 
not to cross the frontier till we have time to try and arrange 
matters. Participation of Germany essential. (25) 

Grey ' hopes that the German Government will feel able 
to influence Austria to take a favourable view of the Serbian 
reply ' as a basis for negotiations. (27 ; This they refused, 
34, but sent on his ' hopes ' to Vienna.) 

July 26 

Vienna. Threatening language of German Ambassador. 
He is confident that Russia will keep quiet ; to move 
would be ' too imprudent '. ' Serbia is going to receive 
a lesson.' ' As for Germany, she knows very well what 
she is about.' ' The Serbian concessions are all a sham.' 
(32) 

AUSTRIA MOBILIZES AGAINST SERBIA 

London. Grey proposes Conference of Ambassadors of 
the Four Powers in London immediately , if Austria and 
Russia will hold back in the meantime. (36 ; Italy, 49 ; 
France, 42, 51, 52, agree ; Germany, 43, refuses.) 

Berlin. The Kaiser returns this evening. The Under- 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs argues that Russia will not 
act if Austria does not annex Serbian territory. (33) 

July 27 

Vienna. ' Country has gone wild with joy at prospect 
of war with Serbia.' British Ambassador, after discus- 
sion with other Ambassadors, concludes that Austria 
meant war from the first. (41) 



BEFORE THE WAR 19 

Berlin. Von Jagow refuses to join in a conference of 
Four Powers ; it would be too like a Court of Arbitration. 
He will ' await outcome of the exchange of views between 
Austria and Russia '. He added that Austria was partially 
mobilizing ; if Russia mobilized only in the south, Ger- 
many would not mobilize, but that ' Russian mobiliza- 
tion was so complicated that it might be difficult exactly 
to locate her mobilization. Germany would have to 
be very careful not to be taken by surprise '. (43) 
Nevertheless 

London. German Ambassador tells Grey that his Govern- 
ment accepts in principle the idea of mediation by the Four 
Powers, reserving, of course, its right to help Austria if 
attacked. (46) 

Grey again presses that Serbian reply should be treated 
as a basis of discussion, and that German Government 
should urge this at Vienna. (46) [See 27, 34 ; they 
refuse.] 

Grey to Austrian Ambassador : cannot understand 
how the Austrian Government can treat Serbia's reply 
as a refusal. It forms at least a basis of negotiations. 
' Austria seems to imagine that she can make war on Serbia 
without bringing Russia in ; if she can, well and good ; 
if not, consequences will be incalculable. The Serbian 
reply was expected to diminish tension ; if Russia 
found that on the contrary there was increased tension, 
the situation would be increasingly serious. Great 
anxiety in Europe : for example, our fleet was to have 
dispersed to-day, but we have kept it mobilized. This 
is not a threat, but an illustration of our anxiety. It 
seemed to me that the Serbian reply already involved the 
greatest humiliation to Serbia that I had ever seen a country 
undergo, and it was very disappointing to me that it was 
treated by Austria as a blank negative.' (48) 

St. Petersburg. Sazonof has proposed friendly con- 
versations with Austria on basis of Serbian reply, and 
will use influence to induce Serbia to do all possible to 

b 2 



20 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

satisfy Austrian demands. If the direct conversations 
are refused, or fail, he is perfectly ready to stand aside and 
leave the whole matter in the hands of the Four Powers — 
Germany, England, France, and Italy. (55, 78 ; Grey 
welcomes this proposal of direct conversations, 69.) 

July 28 

St. Petersburg. Sazonof sends note to London. 
From interviews with German Ambassador he gathers 
that Germany is, if anything, in favour of Austria's 
extreme demands. Has exercised no influence of moderat- 
ing kind at Vienna. This attitude of German Government 
most alarming. Can England possibly influence German 
Government ? The key to the situation is at Berlin. (54) 

Paris. France understands that Great Britain cannot 
stand solid with France and Russia. Is informed that 
Austria will respect integrity of Serbia but not her inde- 
pendence. (59 but cf. 137.) 

Berlin. British Ambassador suggests, and Grey 
agrees, that since German Government (46) accepts 
principle of mediation, we might ask Germany to suggest 
the lines on which she would consent to work with us. (68) 

Vienna. In answer to Grey (46) the Austrian Foreign 
Minister, Berchtold, refuses any conversation on basis of 
Serbian reply ; war is being declared to-day. (61, 62) 

Rome. Italy suggests that perhaps Serbia would 
accept the whole of the Austrian demands if certain 
ambiguous and alarming phrases were explained. Italy 
will co-operate with Great Britain and Germany on any 
lines. (64) 

AUSTRIA DECLARES WAR ON SERBIA (66) 

Russia mobilizes in the South: informs Germany 
and explains that she has no aggressive intention towards 
Germany and is not recalling her Ambassador from 
Vienna. (70) 



BEFORE THE WAR 21 

Berlin. Night. Chancellor refuses to co-operate in any 
way in a conference. Austria's quarrel with Serbia 
a purely Austrian concern ; Russia has nothing to do 
with it. Nevertheless, he strongly desires peace, and 
' is doing his best at St. Petersburg and Vienna to get 
the two Governments to discuss the situation directly 
with each other in a friendly way '. (71) [This is denied 
by Russia and by our Ambassador at Vienna, who state 
that Germany is using no such influence. The influence, 
in any case, seems to have been extraordinarily timid 
(see 75, 76), and was neutralized by the German Ambas- 
sador at Vienna, acting with the war-party at home. This 
Ambassador desired war from the first. (95, 141) No 
evidence has ever been published to show that Germany 
tried to moderate the attitude of Austria, except one 
telegram sent from German sources to the Westminster 
Gazette of August 2, to influence English opinion. The 
German Government has not published any of the 
telegrams it addressed to Vienna.] 

Austrian Ambassador at Berlin says a general war is 
most unlikely ; Russia neither wants, nor is in a position, 
to make war. This opinion widely shared in Berlin. (71 : 
contrast 85.) 

Vienna. Russian Ambassador reports that since 
Austria declines Russia's proposal for conversations, the 
only hope left is a conference of the Four ' less interested 
Powers ' in London. Russia will gladly stand aside. 
(74) 

July 29 

Berlin. Chancellor, in second interview, says it is 
now too late to consider Grey's suggestion that the 
Serbian reply might be a basis for discussion, but he has 
gone so far as to suggest to Austria that, if she does not 
wish to annex Serbian territory, she might say so openly. 
He hoped from this that you will see he is doing his best. 
(75 ; see on 71.) 



22 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

Berlin. Von Jagow says that any suggestion of advice 
to Austria will only lead her to precipitate matters and 
present an ' accomplished fact '. Troubled by reports of 
mobilization in Russia and something similar in France. 
Denies that Germany has begun any mobilizing (' but as a 
matter of fact it is true ', British Ambassador). (76) 

London. Grey sends grateful message to Chancellor 
for his kind language in (75). If he can induce Austria 
to abstain from collision with Russia, all Europe will be 
grateful to his Excellency, (yy) 

London. Grey sees German Ambassador. Grey thinks 
best solution would be direct agreement between Austria 
and Russia, but hears that Austria has declined con- 
versation with Russia. There remains principle of a Con- 
ference between the Four less interested Powers. ' If 
Germany will suggest any method to which she does not 
object — since mine is unacceptable — France, Italy, and 
Great Britain are ready to follow her.' (84 ; cf. 92, 100 ; 
in below.) 

Berlin. Night. Chancellor, having just returned from 
conclave with the Kaiser at Potsdam, speaks openly of war 
and makes a bid for British neutrality. Will Britain 
promise to stand aside while France is beaten, if Germany 
agrees (1) not to annex French territory, and (2) to respect 
neutrality of Holland ? She cannot promise not to annex 
French colonies or to respect neutrality of Belgium. 
[This is the offer subsequently described by Mr. Asquith 
in the House of Commons as an ' Infamous Proposal '.] 
British Ambassador ' thinks it unlikely ' that Grey will 
agree. (85) [Grey indignantly refuses in 101.] 

London. Grey informs France and Germany clearly 

(1) that Great Britain cannot promise to intervene, 

(2) but will not necessarily stand aside. The German 
Ambassador ' must not be misled by the friendly tone 
of our conversations '. The German Ambassador under- 
stood this, and had expected it. (87, 89, 102) 

He further explains to German Ambassador that if 



BEFORE THE WAR 23 

the Four Powers are allowed time, they may bring about 
complete satisfaction for Austria, if only she will give 
them the opportunity. (90) 

Says much the same to the Austrian Ambassador. 
As to the Austrian pledge not to annex territory, he 
points out that, without annexing any territory, Austria 
can make Serbia a sort of vassal State. Ambassador says 
that after all Serbia used to be regarded as in the Austrian 
sphere of influence. (91) 

Vienna. Public opinion very warlike. German 
Ambassador affects surprise that Russia ' should be so 
much interested in Serbia '. British Ambassador reports 
that unless mediation by the Four Powers, Germany 
included, is made rapidly, the situation is desperate. (94) 

July 30 

Vienna. Berchtold says, to meet Russian mobiliza- 
tion in the south, AUSTRIA IS MOBILIZING COM- 
PLETELY, but he no longer objects to conversations taking 
place between Sazonof and the Austrian Ambassador at 
St. Petersburg. (96) 

St. Petersburg. At 2 a.m. German Ambassador, 
suddenly discovering that Russia had been serious all 
along, completely breaks down, and begs Sazonof to make 
an offer to Austria. Sazonof offers ' if Austria will elimi- 
nate demands which violate sovereignty of Serbia, Russia 
will stop all military preparations '. News of secret 
military preparations in Germany. If this offer rejected, 
measures for GENERAL MOBILIZATION will proceed. 

Berlin. Von Jagow says (1) he has asked Austria if 
she will agree to accept mediation after she has occupied 
Belgrade, but has had no answer. (2) Is alarmed by 
accounts of Russian — and French — mobilization ; Ger- 
many has not strictly mobilized yet, but soon must. 
(3) Has heard with regret, though not with surprise, the 
substance of 87, 89, 102. Thanks Grey for his frank- 
ness. (98) 



24 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

London. Grey refuses ' Infamous Proposal ' (85). 
He adds that the one way for Germany to preserve good 
relations with England is that they should continue to work 
together to preserve the peace of Europe (i.e. as in the 
Balkan crisis). Further: ' If the Peace of Europe can 
be preserved and this crisis safely passed, my own endea- 
vour will be to promote some arrangement to which 
Germany can be a party, by which she can be assured 
that no aggressive or hostile policy will be pursued 
against her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, 
jointly or separately. I have desired this and worked 
for it, as far as I could, through the last Balkan crisis. . . . 
The idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject 
of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so much 
more acute than any which Europe has gone through for 
generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief 
and reaction that will follow may make possible some more 
definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been 
possible hitherto.' (101) 

Grey amends Sazonof's proposed formula, suggesting 
' the Powers will examine how Serbia can fully satisfy 
Austria without impairing Serbia's sovereign rights or 
independence '. (103 ; accepted by Russia and Austria, 
120, 131, 132, 133.) 

London. French Ambassador reminds Grey of the 
conversations of French and British experts, and encloses 
evidence to show that German mobilization began on 
July 25. (105) 

Berlin. British Ambassador presses German Govern- 
ment for an answer to Grey's appeal (84) to them to suggest 
some method by which the Four Powers could use their 
mediating influence. They answer that they have not 
had time. They have, however, asked the Austrian 
Government what would satisfy them, but have had no 
answer. Chancellor says one must not ' press the button ' 
too hard. (107 ; cf. 108.) 



BEFORE THE WAR 25 

July 31 

Berlin. British Ambassador reads to the Chancellor 
Grey's answer (101) to (85), refusing the proposal for 
neutrality, and suggesting that, if peace can be pre- 
served, the Entente should be extended to include 
Germany. Chancellor says he is too busy to make 
a comment, and complains of Russian mobilization. 
(109, 108) 

London. Grey suggests, in order to remove Russian 
mistrust of Austria, and Austrian mistrust of Serbia, that 
the Four Powers should undertake (1) that Serbia shall 
give Austria full satisfaction, provided she respects 
Serbian sovereignty and integrity ; and (2) that Austria 
shall respect the said sovereignty and integrity. 

Further, ' if Germany will get any reasonable proposal 
put forward, which made it clear that Germany and Austria 
were striving to preserve European peace and that Russia 
and France would be unreasonable if they rejected it, I will 
support it at St. Petersburg and Paris, and go the length of 
saying that if Russia and France will not accept it I will 
have nothing to do with the consequences. Otherwise, if 
France is drawn in, we shall be drawn in.' (in) 

St. Petersburg. Russia accepts with slight modifica- 
tions the formula proposed by Grey in (103). (120) 

Vienna. Austria accepts the same formula (131). It 
is agreed that (1) Russia shall ' preserve her waiting 
attitude ' ; (2) Austria shall advance no further in 
Serbia ; while (3) ' the Great Powers examine how Serbia 
can give satisfaction to Austria without impairing her 
sovereign rights or independence '. It is proposed 
that the discussions shall take place in London with 
the participation of the six Powers (132, 133, 135)- 
Czar gives personal promise that while conversations 
continue no Russian shall cross the frontier. (120) 
ps The conversations are recommenced on this basis 
(cf. no) when 



26 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 

Berlin. Von Jagow says he cannot answer Grey's 
appeal in 84 and in, because Germany has just 
sent an Ultimatum to Russia, requiring her to order 
demobilization within twelve hours. (121) 

London. Grey explains to German Ambassador that 
the observation of the Neutrality of Belgium may be, if 
not a decisive, an important factor in determining our 
action. (119) 

Sends formal request to France and Germany that 
they shall respect the neutrality of Belgium (114). (France 
says Yes (125) ; Germany refuses to answer (122). Also, 
inquires of Belgium if she is prepared to defend her 
neutrality (115). (Answer, Yes, and expects the Powers 
who signed the treaty to support her (128).) 

August i 

London. Grey sends for German Ambassador to warn 
him of great seriousness of German refusal to answer 
about Belgium. If Belgium violated, it may be difficult 
to restrain public opinion in England. Ambassador asks 
if Grey can in any way be induced to promise uncon- 
ditional neutrality, e.g. supposing Germany agreed not 
to violate Belgium, not to annex French territory or even 
colonies ? Grey refuses to give any such promise. (123) 

Berlin. In answer to Grey's appeal (131) to Germany 
to stay her hand and assist at the renewed conversations 
between Austria and Russia, von Jagow explains that 
the twelve hours are up, and Germany is now at war with 
Russia. (138 ; cf. 144.) 

British steamers are detained in Hamburg. (130) 

St. Petersburg. Sazonof explains, with emotion, his 
efforts for peace. ' No suggestion held out to him has 
been refused.' (139) 

[London. On this day there is a misunderstanding 
between Grey and the German Ambassador. The latter 
says that Grey on the telephone asked him whether, 



BEFORE THE WAR 27 

if France remained neutral, Germany would abstain from 
attacking France. The Kaiser, in telegram to King 
George, turns this into ' communication from your 
Government, in which it offers French neutrality under 
guarantee of Great Britain. He says it must be a guarantee 
by British army and navy. On this he will not indeed 
countermand mobilization on French frontier, but will 
not cross frontier. King George says there must be 
a misunderstanding ; Grey was inquiring how actual 
hostilities between Germany and France might be avoided 
(if France promised not to cross the frontier) while 
possibility still remains of an agreement between Austria 
and Russia. Cf. White Paper 139, from St. Petersburg : 
' I see no possibility of a general war being avoided 
unless the agreement of France and Germany can be 
obtained to keep their armies mobilized on their own 
sides of the frontier, as Russia has expressed her readi- 
ness to do, pending a last attempt to reach a settlement.' 
See German official Aktenstiicke 5, pp. 44 ff. ; Collected 
Documents, pp. 539-41.] 

August 2 

Von Jagow says that Russians have crossed the frontier 
(144). German troops occupy Luxemburg (146), Luxem- 
burg protests to the Powers. (147) 

Germany announces intention to march through 
Belgium, and, if opposed, to treat Belgium as an enemy. 

(153) 

London. Grey assures French Ambassador (1) that, 
subject to approval of Parliament, British fleet will pro- 
tect North Sea and Channel coasts of France, if attacked ; 
(2) explains the doctrine of Lords Derby and Clarendon 
in 1867 about Luxemburg, that we cannot by ourselves 
take action in inland places, but can only support the 
action of others ; where our fleet can reach, as in Belgium, 
we can act freely. (148) 



28 DIARY OF THE TWELVE DAYS 



August 3 

France offers Belgium five Army Corps for the defence 
of her territory ; Belgium declines for the present. (151) 

Italy, considering that the war undertaken by Austria 
and the further war which may result from it have an 
aggressive object, and consequently are in conflict with 
the character of the Triple Alliance, will remain neutral. 

(152) 

The King of the Belgians makes ' a supreme appeal ' 
to Great Britain. (153) 



August 4 

Grey sends the King's appeal to British Ambassador 
at Berlin, and instructs him to ask for an assurance that 
Germany will not proceed with the demand made on 
Belgium. (153) 

Grey assures Belgian Government that Great Britain 
is prepared to join France and Russia in offering common 
action to resist the use of force by Germany. (155) 

Germans have invaded Belgium. (158) 

Berlin. Von Jagow offers promise that Germany will 
not, at the end of the war, annex Belgian territory. 
(Cf. Austria on Serbia.) She is respecting the neutrality 
of Holland, which would be foolish if she meant to 
annex Belgium, since Belgium will not be profitable to 
her without parts of Holland. (157) 

BRITISH ULTIMATUM TO GERMANY. Great 
Britain repeats her requests made last week (114) and 
again this morning (153) about the neutrality of Belgium, 
and expects ' a satisfactory answer by 12 o'clock to-night. 
Otherwise, His Majesty's Government feel bound to take 
all steps in their power to uphold the neutrality of Belgium 
and the observance of a treaty to which Germany is as 
much a party as ourselves '. 



2 9 



2. CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS : 
OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 

Now the above is a mere summary and may not tell 
its story clearly. But the complete record, as given at 
length in the official publications, instantly and definitely 
convinced me. I felt it quite impossible to doubt that 
Sir Edward Grey and all the English representatives 
were working well and hard and sincerely for peace. 
I have read it many times. I have tried to read it with 
the ingenuity of malice, interpreting every word- and every 
omission in the worst possible sense. But even so I can 
make no plausible case against either the straightforward- 
ness or the ability of the British representatives. I will 
even go further. Sometimes in considering a matter 
coolly afterwards, in the light of the known result, one can 
see that at some point a mistake was made which the 
people concerned in the action could not be expected to 
see. But in these negotiations I cannot find any such 
error. 

Other people, I know, profess to find them. I will 
take some criticisms which I have read in pamphlets or 
heard from the lips of anti-governmental critics. 

i. ' Though Grey professed to put forward proposals 
for peace he knew there was no danger of their being 
accepted. He had been acclaimed as the Peace-maker 
of Europe after the Balkan settlement ; if he had again 
come forward as a preserver of the peace, especially if 
the successful negotiations had been held in London, it 
would have been a blow to the Kaiser's amour propre, 
such as he could not be expected to endure.' I should 
be ashamed to mention this curious criticism had I not 
found people who believed in it. If it were true it would 
be a condemnation of German action more contemptuous, 
if not more severe, than any I have heard ; but it is not true. 



30 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

The proposed conversations in London formed only one of 
many different proposals. Germany was again and again 
invited to make proposals of her own. For instance (84) : 
' I urged that the German Government should suggest 
any method by which the influence of the four Powers 
could be used together to prevent war between Austria and 
Russia. France agreed, Italy agreed. The whole idea 
of mediation or mediating influence was ready to be put 
into operation by any method that Germany could 
suggest if mine was not acceptable. In fact mediation 
was ready to come into operation by any method that 
Germany thought possible if only Germany would press 
the button in the interests of peace.' (Cf. 92, 100, in.) 

Thus it is quite untrue to suggest that the proposals 
for peace were put in a form which was calculated to 
injure Germany's amour propre. 

2. ' If Grey had wished to prevent war, he would have 
said at the first that he stood unconditionally with Russia 
and France. Then Germany would have held back. But 
he would not say so ; he was either feebly vacillating 
or deliberately treacherous.' 

Let us take first the charge of vacillation. It is incorrect. 
Whether his policy here was right or wrong, it was from 
the beginning quite definite. He had no alliance with 
either France or Russia ; his hands were free and he 
insisted on keeping them free. He consistently refused 
to commit himself to France or Russia in spite of repeated 
pressure from those Governments. There was no vacilla- 
tion. (See 6, 17, 24 Russia ; 99, 116, 119 France ; cf. 
148 after the Cabinet meeting. Cf. also the letter from 
President Poincare to King George and the King's answer. 
Collected Documents, pp. 542-4.) 

Now for the further point ; was this policy right or 
wrong ? It was surely the only policy possible. Does any 
critic really imagine that a Foreign Minister in a constitu- 
tional state like Great Britain has a right, off his own bat, 
without consulting Parliament, to commit the nation in 



OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 31 

the way suggested ? Suppose Grey had promised armed 
support to Russia and France, his promise bound no one 
but himself. He had not a united Cabinet, he had not even 
a majority of the Cabinet ready to give beforehand a pledge 
of unconditional armed support to France and Russia. 
And besides, he had, in my judgement very properly, 
pledged himself not to make any such large engagement 
without the consent of the House of Commons. He gave 
no pledge, and could give no pledge, till the whole 
situation was laid before Parliament on August 3 and the 
sense of Parliament was taken. 

Thus the policy which Sir Edward Grey followed was 
the only one constitutionally possible. But it was also, 
as far as one can judge, the best. Remember, what Great 
Britain wanted was to preserve the peace of Europe, 
and tempers were rising on both sides. It was desirable 
above all to hold back Germany and Austria ; but it 
was decidedly not desirable to over-encourage Russia 
and France. I do not mean that as a matter of fact 
the Governments of Russia and France wanted war ; 
they did not. They both accepted every proposal for 
conference or mediation that was made. But both were 
exasperated. Many people in both nations were ready 
to utter the exclamation attributed to the Czar, ' We 
have stood this sort of thing for seven and a half years ; ' 
and the unconditional promise of Great Britain's armed 
support might have encouraged them to take a less 
reasonable line than they really took. It would also 
inevitably have destroyed any friendly influence which 
Great Britain might possess in Germany, by definitely 
ranging her on the side of Germany's enemies. (Cf. 17) 
The right line, it seems to me, was for us to make full 
use of our friendly but unallied relation to all Powers : 
to say to our closer friends, ' Remember, if there is war, 
we cannot promise to help you ; ' to say to the other 
party, with whom our relations were at the time friendly 
and had of late been improving, ' Remember, if there 



32 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

is a war, we cannot promise to stay out ; we are keeping 
our fleet mobilized.' (47, 48 last paragraph, especially 
87, 89.) This seems to me the ideally right line, and this is 
exactly the line Sir Edward Grey took. 

3. ' Suppose the above argument is just, suppose that 
Grey's policy was simply and straightforwardly what it 
professed to be ; that is, he did not wish for war but he 
saw that he might be drawn in against his will ; why 
did he always refuse to state the conditions on which 
he was willing to stay out ? Germany made a bid for 
British neutrality, the so-called " infamous proposal " 
(85) ; it was considered unsatisfactory and refused 
(101, 109). Well and good. But later on the German 
Ambassador asked other questions : the first was whether 
Great Britain would promise to stand aside if Germany 
respected the neutrality of Belgium as France had promised 
to do ; the answer was No. That also was reasonable. 
Germany's promise to abide by her treaty obligations 
in one particular respect was clearly not sufficient ground 
to justify Great Britain in promising unconditional 
neutrality. (It was like saying : " If I do not rob the house 
I am now looking at, will you give me a certificate of 
character? ") But the German Ambassador then asked 
a further question : Would Sir Edward Grey himself 
formulate conditions on which he could undertake to 
remain neutral ; and Sir Edward Grey refused to formulate 
any conditions. Did he not hereby put himself into 
exactly the same position as Germany herself when she 
first refused all the British proposals for conference or 
mediation and then further refused to make any proposals 
of her own ? ' 

This point needs careful examination. 

In the first place we must observe that terms for the 
neutrality of Great Britain had been clearly and very 
broadly stated. 1 (89) Sir Edward had told the German 

1 It should also be observed that the German Ambassador, 
after asking Grey to name his terms for remaining neutral, 



OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 33 

Ambassador that ' he did not wish to use any language 
that was like a threat or an attempt to apply pressure by 
saying that if things became worse we should intervene. 
There would be no question of our intervening if Germany 
was not involved, or even if France was not involved.' 
(Cf. 48, 101 above.) 

But if Germany, from whatever motive, chose to use 
the Austro-Serbian dispute as an occasion for making 
war on France, then we must have our hands free. We 
could not tell Germany how much we would take to stand 
aside while France was crushed. We could not arrange 
with Germany for a limited crushing of France. Germany 
suggested various forms of limited crushing — much as 
Austria contemplated in the case of Serbia. No German 
fleet in the Channel ; no direct annexation of French 
territory ; the Ambassador personally — not the Govern- 
ment — suggested as possibilities no breach of the Belgian 
treaty, even no annexation of French colonies ; but all 
such bargaining was both dishonourable and illusory and 
dangerous. Dishonourable, because it meant that, in 
the midst of France's close and loyal co-operation with 
us, we should make, behind her back, a private bargain 
that a stronger Power might bleed her almost — though not 
quite — to death, provided he paid us with his own friend- 
ship. Illusory, because there are other means, without 
annexation of territory, by which a nation can be systema- 
tically ruined or even reduced to a condition of political 
dependence. What else had Austria proposed to do to 
Serbia ? It was dangerous, because the moment Sir 
Edward had consented to formulate or even discuss his 
terms for abandoning France, Germany could, without 
ever intending to accept the terms, have wrecked all 
our relations with France by simply publishing his letter. 

' pressed him to say that the neutrality of Great Britain did not 
depend upon (Germany's) respecting Belgian neutrality'. (Col- 
lected Documents, p. 239 = Livre Jaune, 144.) Evidently he 
knew he could not offer this. 

1844 C 



34 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

It is the old trick played by Bismarck on Benedetti. 
Benedetti, the French Ambassador, was induced to 
discuss with Bismarck a possible treaty between France 
and Germany which involved the annexation of Belgium 
by France ... an ' infamous ' treaty, in fact. Benedetti 
never signed it, and says he never dreamed of signing 
it ; but he was induced to draft some clauses in his own 
handwriting. Bismarck professed to tear them up, but 
instead kept them till his time came and then published 
them. Imagine the effect on our allies if Germany could 
have published letters from the British Minister for 
Foreign Affairs discussing how much destruction and 
spoliation of France and Russia we would agree to and how 
much we would like to be paid for our complaisance ! 

The position of Great Britain was quite clear. We would 
do anything to preserve European peace. We would do 
our best to stand aside from any war arising in good faith 
between states whose definite interests were honestly 
involved. But as soon as we suspected that, by means 
of the Serbian quarrel, Germany intended to force 
a European war and to destroy France, we naturally 
refused to contemplate any bargain which would make 
either of those proceedings easy. 

Thus, as far as an outsider can judge, it seems to me 
that at each point during the ten days before the war 
Sir Edward Grey's policy was exactly right. At least 
I can suggest no improvement, and I can see no validity 
whatever in the criticisms made by his British or German 
opponents. It is of course conceivable that by some 
extraordinary finesse, some dangerous bluff or cunning, 
a brilliant and unscrupulous minister might have pre- 
vented war. No one has suggested how, but such a possi- 
bility is doubtless conceivable. All that I can say there, 
is that I am thankful to have a Foreign Minister who does 
not aim at bluff or cunning, but who has established his 
great reputation in Europe because he is known to be 
disinterested and faithful to his word. 



OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 35 

However, the problem of the Ten Days is only the first 
round in this discussion. It happens to be the one in 
which British policy shows at its very best ; and it happens 
to be the one about which we have by far the fullest 
information. It is rather a good symptom that where we 
know most we admire most. 

But there are other criticisms, bearing on the action 
of the Twelve Days but really rooted in the previous 
history. 

For example, there is the treatment of Belgian neu- 
trality. ' We can understand ', the critic may say, ' why 
the violation of Belgian neutrality was taken as the 
subject of our ultimatum. There were various reasons 
piling up one above the other, and cumulatively pushing 
Great Britain towards war, but Germany's action towards 
Belgium made, so to speak, the inevitable flash-point. 
It was the first definite breach of a treaty, the first 
crossing of a frontier, the first case where, if we still held 
back from war, we could be confronted with our own 
signature and our own broken word. It was the inevit- 
able casus belli. But why had not Grey made Germany 
see this, definitely and unmistakably, years before ? 
For instance, why had he not raised the point when 
Germany first began building that network of railways 
on the Belgian frontier which had so clearly a strategical 
object ? ' 

This is a plausible objection, and one only sees the 
fallacy of it by trying to realize what sort of policy it 
really recommends. No one can say that the question 
of Belgian neutrality had been neglected or buried in 
silence. The treaties were on record, as well as the 
strong statements made about them by our Government ; 
and the German Government was repeatedly heckled 
about them by its own Social Democrats. But the 
policy here proposed is that Grey, at a time when our 
relations with Germany were delicate and he was parti- 
cularly anxious not to offend her, should have said to 

c 2 



36 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

her : ' Why are you building so many railways close to 
the Belgian frontier ? If you are building them with 
a view to breaking your treaty with us about Belgium, 
I must warn you that we shall treat that as a casus belli.' 
Would not such an inquiry have been in the first place 
useless, and in the second dangerously like the deliberate 
picking of a quarrel ? At the best Germany's answer 
would have been : ' We build our own railways in our 
own territory exactly where we like and as we like ; 
and we regard as not strictly pertinent your suggestion 
that we are likely to break our treaties while you keep 
yours.' At the worst, Germany might have taken 
serious offence, and public opinion in England would 
scarcely have been against her. It would have been 
far more strongly against the Minister who chose, at 
a time when we particularly wished for friendly relations, 
to fling upon the table this bone of discord. No ; the 
step proposed is not one which a thoughtful diplomatist 
could have taken, unless he was prepared either to back 
up his declaration by war or to retire from it with an 
apology. 

There is another strange theory, actually current still in 
a subterranean manner, that Sir Edward Grey had con- 
cluded a secret treaty of Alliance with France, and that 
he was thus unconditionally bound to support France 
in any collision with Germany. There is no evidence 
for this theory except Grey's refusal to formulate terms 
of neutrality. ' He could not do so, because he was 
secretly bound to France.' We have seen above that there 
were ample grounds for refusing to promise neutrality, 
without having recourse to any romantic hypothesis of 
this kind. 

Secondly, the hypothesis is disproved by letter in, 
where Sir Edward Grey offers definitely to wash his hands 
of France and Russia and ' have nothing more to do with 
the consequences ' if Germany will make ' any reasonable 
proposal ', and they refuse to accept it. This letter could 



OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 37 

not possibly have been written by one who was ' uncon- 
ditionally bound ' to France. 

But also we happen to have had a full statement and 
discussion in the House of Commons of the exact relations 
in which we stood to France. They are certainly delicate ; 
all the more so because they do not rest on documents. 
The obligations formed by a definite contract between 
two partners are generally fairly simple. The obligation 
that grows up between two men or two groups of men 
who have been loyal companions and faced dangers 
together is far more subtle and delicate, and that is the 
kind of obligation which has grown up between us and 
France. Let us consider the situation in detail. 

When Sir Edward Grey addressed the House of Commons 
on August 3, 19 14, he began by explaining that ' the 
House was free to decide what the British attitude should 
be '. The Government ' had no secret engagement which 
they should spring upon the House '. With France there 
was no Alliance, but there was what is technically called 
an Entente or Understanding ; that is, practice of mutual 
confidence and consultation, and on certain issues a mutual 
promise of diplomatic, not military, support. It had 
been brought about, amid general approval, by Lord 
Lansdowne in 1904. 

Now in 1906, the first year of the Campbell-Bannerman 
Government, there was a crisis in Morocco and a fear 
that Germany intended to force France into war. France 
asked us whether, if she were forced into war, Great 
Britain would give her armed support. Grey gave the 
proper constitutional answer that he would promise 
nothing ; Great Britain could not go to war without the 
whole-hearted support of public opinion and of the 
House of Commons. He did, however, state his belief 
— and in order to be absolutely straightforward, stated 
it in the same words to both the French and German 
Ambassadors — that if, in consequence of the Anglo- 
French Treaty about Morocco, war should be forced on 



38 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

France, public opinion in Great Britain would rally to 
the support of France. Meantime, the crisis passed. 
The conference of Algeciras took place, and war was 
averted. 

The French Government then said : ' We understand 
you cannot promise in advance to give us armed support. 
Nevertheless, if you think it possible that a sudden 
crisis may arise in which public opinion in Great Britain 
would approve of giving it, surely we ought to consult 
one another about the form which it should take. You 
will not be able to give that support, even if you wish 
to give it, when the time comes, unless some conversa- 
tions have already taken place between naval and mili- 
tary experts'. To this Sir Edward agreed, on the distinct 
understanding that nothing which passed between the 
military or naval experts should be taken as in any way 
binding either Government. The matter dropped for the 
moment because the crisis of 1906 passed away ; but it 
rose again in 19 12, when there was again a threatening 
situation between France and Germany. The question 
was discussed by the Cabinet, the conversations between 
experts were authorized, and the stipulation definitely 
recorded in a letter from Grey to the French Ambassador 
and an answering letter from the Ambassador to Grey. 
' It was understood that such consultation does not restrict 
the freedom of either Government to decide in any future 
time whether or not to assist the other by armed force. . . . 
The disposition, for instance, of the French and British 
fleets respectively at the present moment ' (i. e. the French 
in the Mediterranean and the British in the North Sea and 
Channel) ' is not based upon an engagement to co-operate 
in war ' (Grey, in the House of Commons, August 3, 
1914). 

These conversations raise an exceedingly important 
question of policy. The argument in favour of them is 
quite clear, and so is the argument against. And they 
must be weighed one against the other. On the one hand, 



OUR RELATION TO FRANCE 39 

if there was any likelihood at all that Great Britain might 
find herself involved in war by the side of France, and that 
suddenly, with no time for consultation and preparation, 
it seems absolutely necessary that the two War Offices 
and Admiralties should consult beforehand and form some 
kind of plan. Not to have done so would have been to 
go into the war blindfolded. As a matter of fact, it is 
to these discussions that we owe the successful organiza- 
tion of the British Expeditionary Force, the under- 
standing between the two fleets, and the present safety of 
Paris. If there had been no conversations, the opening 
of this war would have been, as far as one can see, inde- 
scribably disastrous. 

On the other hand, it may be objected that if the con- 
versations themselves did not bind us, the results of the 
conversations did. They inevitably drew us closer to 
France. They were not officially binding. They were 
explicitly recognized by both sides as non-binding. But 
it must be admitted that, when the experts had consulted, 
and when Great Britain, after consultation with the 
French War Office, proceeded to make a scheme for the 
possible landing of an Expeditionary Force in France if 
ever it should be required ; and when France, after con- 
sultation with the British Admiralty, proceeded to send 
all her fleet to the Mediterranean and leave her northern 
and western coasts unprotected, the two countries were 
a good deal more closely connected than before. It is 
quite incorrect to say that there was a ' secret engage- 
ment ' and to suggest that Ministers who denied the 
existence of such an engagement were not speaking the 
truth. The conversations, which of course were ' secret ', 
were not in any sense an engagement ; and the facts 
which did, in a sense, constitute something like a moral 
engagement were not secret but patent to the world. The 
plan for an Expeditionary Force was openly discussed, 
and there was of course no attempt to conceal the position 
of either the French or the British fleet. But, without 



40 CRITICISMS ON THE TWELVE DAYS 

engagements or treaties, the needs of the situation were 
insensibly drawing the two nations closer and closer. 

I do not see that there is any case against Sir Edward 
Grey on the count of ' secret diplomacy ' ; but I do see 
a case for an opponent of the whole policy of ' ententes '. 
' These ententes and special friendships ', he might say, 
' are a mere trap. You say they are not alliances ; you 
say they commit you to nothing ; you say you carefully 
limit yourself to arrangements for " diplomatic support " 
and make no commitments about war. But you are on 
a slippery slope. Every step you take is a move' in the 
downward direction. Every crisis which the two nations 
face together, every plan they make, every conversation 
they hold, draws them nearer to the ultimate vortex, till 
you have France involved in war for the sake of Russia, 
and Great Britain for the sake of France and Belgium, 
in a quarrel in which none of them were originally con- 
cerned.' 

And there for the present we must leave it. If the 
Entente was good policy, the conversations and the re- 
arrangement of the fleets were good policy. If the En- 
tente was wrong, so were the consequences of it. To 
discuss the policy of the Entente is to discuss the policy 
of the last eight years, and a little more. 



B. THE EIGHT YEARS 

i. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN 
POLICY 

To the eye of a thorough-going Liberal there is some- 
thing sordid and even odious about the ordinary processes 
of Foreign Policy. There is a constant suspicion of 
intrigue, a constant assertion of ' interests ', a dangerous 
familiarity with thoughts of force or fraud, and a habit of 
using silken phrases as a cover for very brutal facts. 
In Home Politics you are working, in ideal at any rate, 
with a band of friends, bound to each other by the 
ties of common language and history, by neighbourhood 
and habits and common interests, or at least, where these 
fail, by the law and the knowledge in each man's mind 
that if he maltreats his neighbour he will be made to 
suffer for it. This ideal is of course not fully realized — far 
from it — but it is present as a groundwork. And normally 
all good Germans, all good Englishmen, all good French- 
men, are in their Home Politics mainly working at redress- 
ing injustices, improving social conditions, helping the 
unfortunate, and generally strengthening or raising the 
standard of national life. But Foreign Politics are the 
relations between so many bands of outlaws. There are 
seldom any strong ties between the parties, either of lan- 
guage or history or neighbourhood or habits ; very often 
there are traditions of positive hostility and mutual dislike. 
But the cardinal trouble is that, in their relations to one 
another, the nations have no firm and definite law to 
control them, or at least no power capable of executing 
the law. 

When I say ' outlaws ', of course I do not mean criminals. 



42 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 

These outlaws are by nature just as honest and honourable 
as other men ; they make treaties with one another and 
mostly keep them, they pledge their word and generally 
abide by it. But if they do not, there is nobody to make 
them. If one wrongs his neighbour, there is generally no 
one but that neighbour to make him suffer for it ; if his 
neighbour wrongs him, he has no protection except his 
own knife and gun. 

If we add to this absence of a common effective law the 
fact that each nation is normally sensitive only to its own 
public opinion and quite callous towards opinions expressed 
by foreign persons in foreign languages, and the further fact 
that to the average individual in each nation the serving 
of his country's national interests seems a devoted and un- 
selfish ideal, in pursuit of which a little irregularity here 
and there may well be forgiven, we begin to understand 
the curious mental atmosphere, rather like of so many 
mediaeval barons under an absentee king, in which our 
international diplomats have to move. There is fear in 
the air, and it is fear that makes men lie. It also makes 
them polite. In old diplomatic records, and sometimes 
in modern ones, you will find such statements as the 
following : ' His Excellency received me with the ut- 
most cordiality. He assured me that his Government 
had sent no letter to the Panjandrum and had never 
entertained the idea of sending any. As I had myself read 
the letter which his Excellency had sent, I thought it best 
to express the utmost gratification at his Excellency's 
assurance, and said that my Government had been guided 
by the same principles. I do not think he detected my 
knowledge or suspected that I had written to the Pan- 
jandrum first.' This sort of thing does not occur in Home 
Politics ; or, if it does, it brings a swift retribution. But 
in the diplomacy of some nations it would hardly be 
thought odd. 

Now against this spirit of international intrigue there 
has been in the Western nations a constant protest, a 



FOREIGN POLICY 43 

revolt of the human conscience and a constant effort after 
some better system. The protest is especially associated 
with the writers of the French Revolution, such as 
Condorcet, and the Liberal British statesmen of the 
nineteenth century. In its revolutionary form it appeals 
directly to the ideal of fraternity. ' All men are brethren ; 
the division of nations is due to prejudice and convention ; 
let us away with such false barriers and simply love one 
another and seek one another's good, irrespective of nation- 
ality.' In its more practical and constructive form it is, 
in Mr. Gladstone's words, ' the enthronement of the idea 
of Public Right as the governing idea of European politics.' 
That is, it is an attempt to bring the bands of outlaws 
under some general system of just dealing. We may or 
may not love the foreigner as a brother ; but at any rate 
we will try to behave towards him with common honesty. 
These two conceptions are really complementary. As an 
inspiration in the background a man may feel the ultimate 
brotherhood of mankind ; but meantime as a practical 
principle of Foreign Politics it will be a great thing if we 
can follow the rule of public right ; that is, be true to our 
engagements, seek no unjust advantages, and settle our 
disputes by fair dealing, not by intrigue or force. These 
two ideals — like almost all ideals that have the truth in 
them — have found a very effective ally in ordinary ex- 
perience and common sense. Practical people all over 
Europe have found, as a matter of fact, that international 
prejudices and jealousies are as a rule both silly and un- 
profitable ; that in other things beside trade and finance 
the prosperity of any one nation generally involves the pro- 
sperity of its neighbours and its injury their injury. This 
is, for example, the basis of the principle of Free Trade in 
its relation to Foreign Policy. 

Fraternity, public right, and common sense : the pro- 
blem is how to practise them or even remember them when 
we enter this market-place of chaffering outlaws, each with 
a knife in his belt. It is not to be forgotten that we are 



44 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 

outlaws too ; that we too carry knives ; that we happen 
also to be remarkably rich and worth robbing. Our 
consciences may also remind us that our own past has 
some rough chapters in it, and that we were by no means 
always so respectable as we wish to be now. On the 
other hand it is pretty certain that, as we ourselves are 
trying to be honest and friendly, so are a good many of 
the others. Only you cannot be sure of them ; you have 
to watch and be on your guard. You will beware of 
a smooth-spoken man who has been caught lying and 
making mischief. You will beware of a very big man 
with an extra large and effective knife, who looks hungry 
and seems inclined to pick quarrels. 

There are various possible policies. You might, for 
instance, throw down your knife, and say publicly : 
' Here is the proof that I wish to injure no one. If any 
one wishes to injure me I leave him to his conscience, 
and shall not resist.' This plan would be dangerous, and 
probably difficult to live up to in detail. Or you might 
say : ' I will instantly buy a larger knife still and do for 
that big brute before he expects it.' This plan would be 
doubly dangerous. For even if it succeeded you would 
soon find all your other neighbours banded against you. 
And meantime you would have been false to all your 
principles. 

Or you might say : ' There is danger here. So I will 
set my affairs in order. I will try to settle by fair dealing 
all the disputes that I have with any one in this market. 
I will make friends with my neighbours and deal with 
them frankly. When I make a contract with any one I 
will take scrupulous care never to overreach him and 
never to fail him. I will not attempt to make myself 
richer by any sort of pilfering or plundering. Then, if 
I am forced to fight, I shall have friends to help me. And 
meantime I will keep my knife sharp.' 

That seems a good and even a high-minded course. 
' But after all,' some idealists will say, ' does it amount 



FOREIGN POLICY 45 

to doing all that one can do ? Could not one be more 
active for brotherhood and for public right ? There are 
sure to be many objectionable things going on in that 
outlaws' market. Are you going meekly to acquiesce in 
them ? Strong outlaws will be fleecing weaker ones, 
especially in the remote corners ; some of the outlaws are 
said to oppress their servants and behave atrociously in 
their families. Even your own special friends have their 
vices, at least so the gossip of the market tells you. You 
are a rich strong person ; you are armed. Why do you 
not interfere and put a stop to all wrongdoing whenever 
you see it ? You have shown that you are disinterested ; 
that is good. Now go a step further, and be a crusader 
for the right ! ' 

Dangerous again ! Suppose you tell some stranger or 
possible enemy to cease from his iniquities, or else you will 
make him, and then call upon your friends for help. Will 
they like it ? They may be ready to support you if at- 
tacked ; but will they do so if you go round the market 
picking quarrels, however honourable your motive ? 
Suppose again that you feel your friend's home life to 
be reprehensible and tell him so uninvited ? Are you 
sure it will make him behave better, or that he will con- 
tinue to be friendly ? And suppose that he returns you 
a contumacious answer, are you prepared to make him 
mend his ways by force ? If so, there is an end to one of 
your friendships, and probably a new alliance among your 
enemies. And suppose, after all, that, as so often happens, 
the rumour of the market was wrong, and after denouncing 
some one for his domestic misconduct you turn out to 
have been misinformed ? No. Unless you are very con- 
fident in your strength and your cause, and ready at any 
moment to fight for your life and fight alone, you will 
not be able to indulge this generous enthusiasm. You 
may indeed sometimes find a particular wrongdoer who 
happens to be comparatively weak and friendless : on him 
you can descend like an avenging angel. Yet even that 



46 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 

indulgence is apt to be more dangerous than it looks, as well 
as a little unworthy of a crusader. In the main you must 
be content only to punish those crimes and right those 
wrongs about which the conscience of the whole market 
is practically agreed, and for the rest to mind your own 
business. You will have, on the whole, to let the other 
outlaws do as they please with their own people, only 
occasionally and with tact indicating to your friends 
where your sympathies lie. You will have to allow cruel 
oppressions to go on in the regions outside your control, 
and be content to do your utmost to let Justice reign in 
your own house. 

' Why not leave the market altogether ? ' some one 
may ask — ' cease to chaffer and wrangle with these 
other brigands, and live a decent life with your own 
people in splendid isolation ? ' The trouble is that you 
cannot. You and the others are by now mixed up 
inextricably. Your cattle, do what you will, are sure 
sometimes to trespass on your neighbour's corn, and his 
on yours ; you have to share the same stream for watering 
your respective meadows ; your respective children and 
servants cannot be kept from constantly trading and 
occasionally quarrelling with one another. If you do not 
want to spend all your days fighting blood-feuds about 
trifles, you absolutely must come regularly to the market 
and talk things over and settle them by fair give and take. 
The dealings of the outlaws' market may be very far 
from perfect ; they may constantly shock your aspirations 
after Brotherhood and often outrage your sense of 
Public Right, but, unless you wish to return to brigandage 
pure and simple, you must study the ways of the market 
and make the best of it. 

We will not follow the parallel further. Of course it 
does not hold in every detail. Notably the reforming 
outlaw of our fancy was a free man, acting for himself. 
If he chose to risk his own life and throw away his own 
property, he was at liberty to do so. But a Foreign 



FOREIGN POLICY 47 

Minister, even supposing he can be sure of the support 
of his Cabinet and his parliamentary majority, is never 
a perfectly free agent. He is always a trustee for his 
nation. His nation's interests and welfare are put in his 
hands, and he is no more at liberty either to speculate 
with them or be over-generous with them, than an honest 
lawyer with the property of his ward or a trade union 
secretary with the funds of his union. Men who have in 
their hands the property and interests of others must 
needs err a little on the side of caution. I will not say 
that they must never be trustful and generous and for- 
giving. An impulse of chivalry may be sometimes the 
highest wisdom. But they must remember that the pos- 
sessions with which they are generous are not strictly 
their own. They are part of a great estate, with life 
behind it and before, of which they are only the tran- 
sient administrators. 



2. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BRITISH 
FOREIGN POLICY SINCE 1906 

Now let us consider the principles laid down by Sir 
Edward Grey as the guiding rules of his Foreign Policy. 
In general he is often supposed to represent the principle 
of Continuity in Foreign Policy, but this is not quite 
exact . In certain very large issues the Liberal Government 
of 1906 and onward agreed entirely with the policy of 
Lord Salisbury and Lord Lansdowne and therefore 
followed their action. On other issues it differed. For 
instance, it stopped indentured Chinese labour in the 
Transvaal and it granted immediate self-government to 
South Africa. But in Europe the policy has been mostly 
continuous. That is to say, the circumstances in Europe 
for the last eight or ten years have been such that almost 
all people who studied the subject at all were agreed as 
to the main line which British policy must take. Only 



4-S GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 

a very small number of Jingoes at one end and of Radicals 
at the other end took different views. The principles 
are conveniently stated in the House of Commons 
Debate on Foreign Policy on November 27, 191 1. 

1. ' In my opinion the wise policy for this country is 
to expand as little as possible.' ' The Rt. Hon. Gentleman 
pointed out quite truly that we do not desire to extend 
our Empire further. ... I say without any hesitation 
that we do not desire accessions of territory, and in saying 
that I am not speaking for one small section of the House. 
I believe I am speaking for the nation at large.' The first 
sentence comes from Sir Edward Grey, the second from 
Mr. Bonar Law. Thus, the first principle of the present 
agreed and continuous Foreign Policy is that we seek no 
increase of territory. 

This is made a little clearer in a later sentence of 
Sir Edward Grey's speech. ' If there are to be changes 
of territory brought about by goodwill and negotiation 
between other powers, then we are not an ambitious 
competing party. . . . And if it is the wise policy not to 
go in for great schemes of expansion ourselves, then I think 
it would be morally and diplomatically wrong to indulge 
in a dog-in-the-manger policy with regard to others.' In 
particular, he explains, if Germany wishes ' by friendly 
arrangements with other powers ' to extend her territories, 
we do not wish to stand in her way, or to claim ' com- 
pensations '. 

The only limitation of this principle is an obvious one. 
There are certain places lying next to British possessions 
or perhaps strategically commanding important British 
routes which we ' could not see pass into other hands '. 

This policy as a whole may displease some Empire- 
enthusiasts ; it will be accepted by all Liberals. The last 
limitation may possibly rouse suspicion in some minds, 
but not, I think, in the mind of any one who will really 
imagine himself in the position of a trustee responsible 
for the interests of the British Empire. 



BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY SINCE 1906 49 

2. Yet, even without any expansion or aggression, an 
empire so large and vigorous as ours is apt to have points 
of friction where it comes in contact with other Powers. 
The next principle of British policy was to remove these 
points of friction and establish cordial relations with our 
neighbours. This was a policy which needed definite 
initiative and determination. The disputes were not 
likely to settle themselves. Sir Edward Grey came into 
office in 1906, and found his path both for good and evil 
prepared for him. On the one hand, there was the extreme 
unpopularity which Great Britain had acquired from the 
South African War and the excessive imperialism which 
accompanied it. The immediate and generous grant of 
self-government to the South African Union did a great 
deal to remedy this, but it remained a bad memory and 
a source of ill feeling. On the other hand, Sir Edward 
entered into the inheritance of a successful policy of 
conciliation and settlement, derived from Lord Salisbury 
and Lord Lansdowne. 

Any one whose memory goes back to the eighties and 
nineties of last century will remember the frequent 
talk there was in those days of Russian scares and French 
' pin-pricks '. We had been on the verge of war with 
France about the partition of Africa, about Fashoda, 
about Siam, and had serious friction about Egypt, about 
the Newfoundland fisheries, about Madagascar, and about 
the New Hebrides. This state of things was utterly 
unworthy as well as disastrous. It was brought to an 
end partly by the conciliatory policy of Lord Salisbury, 
and finally by a series of settlements in 1904 between 
Lord Lansdowne and M. Delcasse, the most important 
of which dealt with Morocco and Egypt. Since then our 
relations with France have been increasingly cordial, 
and such disputes as have occurred have been settled 
in a friendly manner and without difficulty. 

With Russia our causes of quarrel were chiefly two. 
In the first place, Russia had always regarded herself — 

1844 d 



50 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 

it was a policy in which the whole emotion of the Russian 
people was involved — as the champion of the oppressed 
Christian populations of the Balkan Peninsula who were 
held down by the infidel Turk ; and we had inherited from 
the times of the Crimean War the very repugnant policy 
of defending the Turk in order to check Russia. Secondly, 
Russia was steadily and inevitably advancing her borders 
in Central Asia : she had not yet reached the borders 
of British India, but she was threatening us from across 
the Pamirs, across Afghanistan, and across Persia. The 
first of these causes of quarrel was gradually removed as 
the normal sympathies of Great Britain were allowed 
to show themselves. Public feeling here was really 
in favour of the subject peoples and against the Turks ; 
and Lord Salisbury, who had himself been a colleague of 
Beaconsfield in the Congress of Berlin and helped that 
statesman to back up Turkey, at last stated publicly 
that in the Balkans we ' had put our money on the wrong 
horse '. So that in this anxious field of politics the friction 
between Great Britain and Russia was largely removed. 
There remained the frontier question in Asia. To this 
Sir Edward Grey addressed himself. 

The special point of difficulty was Persia. That 
decaying empire was in a state of habitual confusion and 
disorder. It was almost inevitable that its two powerful 
neighbours, Great Britain and Russia, should from time 
to time have to take rather violent action there to keep 
order or to protect travellers. It was quite likely that 
one or other of them might be led to interfere with the 
Persian Government. And meantime each was intriguing 
hard to prevent the other from advancing its boundaries 
and each suspecting the other of worse intrigues still. 
It was this mutual suspicion and intrigue that Grey set 
himself with all his vigour to dissipate. Various frontier 
arrangements were made in 1907 and later, keeping in 
view two principles. First, the territories of the two 
Great Powers were, as far as possible, to be kept well 



BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY SINCE 1906 51 

separated. Secondly, there should be from henceforth 
no more intrigue, and no cause for suspicion. As far as 
Grey could make it so, the relation between the two 
neighbour Powers was to be frank and loyal, based indeed 
on a treaty but continued as a habit of free consultation 
and mutual confidence. 

As far as the relations of Great Britain with France and 
Russia are concerned, these treaties, if they at all attain 
their object, are evidently, beyond dispute, an enormous 
and almost unmixed blessing. The objections to them 
from other points of view will be treated later. 

But meantime what about our relations with other 
Powers ? The effort towards peace and goodwill was, 
I think, generally operative. During the nineties we had 
frequent disputes with the United States and once, in 
1895, about the boundaries of Venezuela, we drifted care- 
lessly almost to the brink of war. But the same policy 
was pursued here also. It was built up largely by the 
efforts of Lord Pauncefote, a diplomatist of the old school, 
whose services to the cause of peace and arbitration should 
not be forgotten ; and it culminated in the historic ap- 
pointment of James Bryce as Ambassador at Washington 
and his extraordinary success in winning the confidence 
and affection of the American people. Our relations with 
the United States are always intimate, but they have 
never before been so friendly as during the presidencies 
of Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Taft, and Mr. Wilson. 

With Italy our relations were always cordial, but they 
have on the whole improved ; they were good enough to 
stand the strain of the war in Tripoli, and have now 
ripened into an alliance. With the smaller European 
Powers we had no quarrel ; where opportunity offered we 
have shown them goodwill, and have concluded friendly 
treaties with most of them. 

And what of Germany ? 

The answer is quite clear. Count Reventlow in his 
great history of German Foreign Policy admits that up 

D 2 



52 BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY SINCE 1906 

to about 1892 England had maintained the friendliest 
attitude to Germany and given her no cause for irritation. 
In 1879, when the beginnings of the Triple Alliance were 
formed, Lord Salisbury went out of his way to say that 
' a crowning mercy had been vouchsafed to the world '. 
When Germany was setting forth on her colonial pro- 
gramme in 1884, Mr. Gladstone said : ' If Germany is to 
become a colonizing Power, all I can say is, God speed 
her ! She becomes our ally and partner in the execution 
of the great purposes of Providence for the advantage of 
mankind.' Mr. Chamberlain added, ' If foreign nations 
are determined to pursue distant colonial enterprises we 
have no right to prevent them.' Almost exactly the 
same words as were used by Sir Edward Grey in 191 1 ; 
but the relations between the two Powers had greatly 
changed in the meantime. We shall consider later 
exactly what caused the change. 

But first we will examine the two Ententes more in 
detail. 



3. THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE : THE 
MOROCCO TREATY OF 1904 

The Treaty of 1904 with France settled our respective 
positions in Egypt and in Morocco. 

In Egypt France and Great Britain had in the last 
century equally great interests. When Arabi Pasha 
rebelled against the Khedive in 1882, Mr. Gladstone, 
rightly or wrongly, with much reluctance and amid much 
well-grounded criticism from his own party, decided that 
we were bound by treaty to protect the Khedive against 
rebellion. We invited the French to act with us, but they 
declined. We suppressed Arabi and then found it harder 
to evacuate Egypt than we had imagined. The Govern- 
ment was not yet secure. Lord Salisbury agreed with 
Mr. Gladstone that we ought to evacuate as soon as 



THE MOROCCO TREATY 53 

it was safe to do so. In 1887 we arranged terms of 
evacuation with Turkey, but France induced the Sultan 
not to sign the treaty. Meantime our responsibilities 
in Egypt increased instead of diminishing. The defence 
of the country against the predatory Dervishes of the 
Sudan led us into further military expeditions. The 
needs of the Civil Government gradually called into 
being a skilled civil service, more or less on the Indian 
model ; and the long administration of Lord Cromer, 
though naturally opposed by the Nationalists and open 
to criticism in detail, improved the economic condition 
of the country out of all recognition. The story of 
Egypt, however, lies outside our present subject. What 
concerns us is that all through this process France 
was increasingly irritated against Great Britain. She 
suspected that we intended the annexation of a country 
which had once almost been hers ; she was naturally 
jealous of our control over the Suez Canal, which was her 
creation ; she saw her ambitions on the Upper Nile 
abruptly thwarted by our control of the Sudan. Conse- 
quently she made a practice of harassing us whenever 
opportunity offered, and opportunities did offer in every 
corner of the world. 

' By the Treaty of 1904 this state of friction was set at 
rest. Great Britain declared that she ' had no intention 
of altering the political status of Egypt '. France in 
return ' declared that she would not obstruct the action 
of Great Britain in that country ' in any manner. The 
other Powers were informed of the treaty and made corre- 
sponding declarations. 

In return we made a similar agreement with France 
about Morocco. France had long been established in 
Algeria, and had founded there a most successful and 
prosperous colony. All along the western frontier of 
Algeria, reaching down to the desert, lay this desperately 
ill-governed and turbulent Empire of Morocco. (I re- 
member as an undergraduate attending a lecture on 



54 THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE 

Moroccan atrocities ; the then Shereef, it was stated, had 
marched a regiment of soldiers, in chains and without 
food or water, into the desert till they died.) This 
geographical position made France the natural Power to 
exercise any police-work that was necessary in Morocco, 
and also made it highly undesirable that another Great 
Power should establish itself in that country, threatening 
Algeria in the flank. On the other hand, the Republican 
Government were determined not to embark, if they could 
help it, on any attempt to conquer or annex Morocco, 
a project which would have been both expensive and 
dangerous. 1 So far all seemed plain ; but the question 
of the north coast presented some special difficulties. It 
lay opposite Gibraltar and was strategically important 
for the control of the Straits. Great Britain could not 
well agree to having a strong naval Power, like France, 
established there. Besides, there was Spain to be remem- 
bered, and Spain had always considered that line of coast 
to be in her own sphere of influence. 

In the agreement of 1904 the French Government 
' declare that they have no intention of altering the 
political status of Morocco '. The British Government 
' recognize that it appertains to France more particularly, 
as a Power whose dominions are conterminous for a great 
distance with those of Morocco, to preserve order in that 
country and to provide assistance ' for all the reforms it 
may require. 

' They will not obstruct the action taken by France for 
this purpose provided that the existing rights of Great 
Britain ' — these rights were chiefly concerned with the 
coasting trade — are left intact. The commerce of all 

1 The French Chamber passed repeated resolutions in favour 
of abiding by the Act of Algeciras and against a ' forward policy ' 
in Morocco. Mr. E. D. Morel gives the following dates of such 
resolutions: 1906, Dec. 6; 1907, Nov. 12; 1908, Jan. 24, Jan. 28, 
June 19, Dec. 23 ; 1909, Jan. 10, Nov. 23 ; 191 1, March 24. 
(Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy, p. 102 (ed. 1915).) 



THE MOROCCO TREATY 55 

nations was to receive identical treatment — guaranteed 
for thirty years ; and the two Powers promised one 
another ' diplomatic support in order to obtain the execu- 
tion of the clauses of the declaration '. 

Now this treaty, as far as it goes, meets with almost 
universal approval. It may be that France gained more 
than England ; but since both gained, and on the whole 
the world gained, there is not much harm in that. It 
may be that the trade equality should have been guaran- 
teed for ever instead of thirty years. But such points 
are trifles. 

Far more serious objection is taken to the fact that 
this public treaty was accompanied by a secret treaty. 
This single secret treaty, not made by Sir Edward Grey 
but by his predecessor, has been made the foundation 
for a wide national outcry and, in my judgement, for the 
most hysterical suspicions. What was the secret treaty, 
and why was it made ? 

It was made for this reason. When civilized Powers 
are dealing with a Power which is uncivilized, mis- 
governed, torn by disorder and rebellion, and very nearly 
bankrupt, all history shows that it may be impossible, 
even with the best will in the world, to preserve the inde- 
pendence of that Power. Read the history of the State 
of Oudh or even Bokhara ; or consider the infinite trouble 
which Great Britain and other Powers have had to main- 
tain — against the public interest — the integrity of Turkey 
in Europe. And Turkey is, of course, vastly stronger 
and less chaotic than Morocco. In this case France had 
declared her wish and intention to maintain the ' political 
status ' of Morocco. But suppose it proved impossible 
to do so ? Suppose the Government finally collapsed. 
Great Britain naturally wanted to know what France 
proposed to do in that case, especially since we objected 
to her annexing the north coast. France therefore 
promised us that, if ever she ' found herself constrained 
by force of circumstances ' to intervene more drastically 



56 THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE 

in Morocco, she would not establish a protectorate over 
that strip of north coast, but would allow it to come 
into the sphere of influence of Spain. A condition was 
attached that Spain should generally accept the other 
conditions of the Anglo-French agreement and undertake 
not to pass the territory in question on to another Power. 
A separate treaty to this effect was made between France 
and Spain. 

It will be observed that this secret treaty, which is made 
such a central indictment against Sir Edward Grey, was 
not made by him, but by the Conservative Government 
of 1904. But, apart from that, is it honestly possible to 
complain of its secrecy ? 

Of course, there are always objections to secrecy, but 
in the present case it is hard to see what else was possible. 
There were only three courses open : a secret treaty, 
a public treaty, or no treaty at all. I think, on the whole, 
the first of these was the least bad. A public treaty would 
have been the end of Morocco. You cannot successfully 
maintain the ' credit and integrity ' of an empire when you 
have published to the world the arrangements you have 
made in case it proves too hopelessly incompetent to go on 
existing. And to make no treaty at all would have left 
in action all those causes of friction which the two Govern- 
ments were trying to remove. We should never have 
known whether the French were not arranging to annex 
the north coast, or making some dangerous deal about it. 
We should have known that the dissolution of Morocco 
was always imminent, and that, if it occurred, our treaty 
with France would cease to hold. We should have been 
back in the full swing of mutual suspicion and intrigue. 
No : with all the undoubted objections to ' secret diplo- 
macy ' in general, I do not see how any Government could 
have avoided this particular secret treaty. 

But besides the secrecy, there are other criticisms 
passed upon the agreement of 1904 ; some of them are 
valid and some not. 



THE MOROCCO TREATY 57 

There is a suggestion that the secret treaty was incon- 
sistent with the public one, and showed the dishonest 
intentions of the two Powers. This suspicion seems to 
me quite gratuitous. We need not for a moment dispute 
the charge that there were plenty of dishonest people in 
France and elsewhere, who simply wanted to make money 
out of Morocco, and were ready to push their Govern- 
ments towards any discreditable adventure which might 
lead to that object. Of course there were, and are, and, 
as far as one can see, always will be such people. And 
I fear we must admit that, even in the best-conducted 
nations, they do sometimes influence Governments and 
deflect the course of public policy. Neither the treaties 
themselves nor any incidents in the subsequent ten 
years seem to me to indicate any dishonesty in the 
French Government ; but in any case, the doings of the 
French Government are not our immediate business. 
Our business is with the British Government ; and it does 
not here come under suspicion. It has never intervened 
in Morocco. 

Next there is the criticism that a treaty of this kind 
could not properly or safely be made without consultation 
with Germany. This was pointed out by Lord Rosebery, 
I believe, at the time, and seems to me a just criticism. 
It does not touch Sir Edward Grey. It hardly even 
touches Lord Lansdowne, who seems to have laid the 
agreement about Egypt quite correctly before all the 
Powers and obtained their approval. It was for France 
to communicate the Morocco Treaty, since she was the 
interested Power. And it seems that M. Delcasse did 
not formally do so. He told the German Ambassador, 
Prince Radolin, about the treaty beforehand ; that is on 
record. And Radolin duly informed the Chancellor. 
They both agreed that, as far as they understood the 
terms of the treaty, it did not injure German interests, 
and they gave it their general approval. But for some 
reason M. Delcasse did not formally communicate the 



58 THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE 

treaty to the German Government. He may have felt 
a difficulty about the secret clauses. Again, it appears 
that he objected strongly to the idea that France must 
submit her important acts of foreign policy to Germany 
for approval, except in matters where Germany was 
directly concerned. Here he was doubtless right ; the 
claim which Germany afterwards made, that no treaty 
should be made in any part of the world without the 
approval of Germany, was not one which a self-respecting 
nation could admit. But in the case of Morocco Germany 
had some solid interests involved. She was not nearly so 
much interested as the other three Powers ; she had no 
conterminous frontier, like France, no neighbouring 
frontier, like Spain : she had no strategical interest at 
stake, like Spain and England ; and not half nor a third 
the amount of Moroccan trade that England had. Still, 
she had some commercial interests ; and the advanced 
Colonial Party in Germany had indulged in dreams of 
making Morocco a German possession. It would have 
been more polite to consult Germany. 

There is another objection which, I fully agree, ought 
not to be overlooked. It raises a large question of prin- 
ciple. When Mr. Dillon, in the historic debate of Novem- 
ber 27, 1911, remarked upon the fact that in all the 
controversy about the Moroccan Treaty ' it does not seem 
to have occurred to any one that the people of Morocco 
have any say in the matter at all ', certain members of the 
House laughed and cried ' Hear, hear '. Yet it is cer- 
tainly not a thing to laugh at or to take for granted, that, 
as Mr. Dillon proceeded to say, the future of a country 
should be settled by treaty between two foreign Powers, 
and that settlement defended at length without ' one 
sentence to indicate the smallest sympathy with the 
people to whom that country belonged '. 

There is a tragedy here, a tragedy which underlies 
the relations between civilized and uncivilized nations 
throughout the globe. The history of almost every 



THE MOROCCO TREATY 59 

European colony shows it in some degree. Civilized man 
at his best can do great things for uncivilized man, 
especially perhaps if the difference between them is so 
great that the inferior does not seek to dispute it. But 
what the more backward nations very often receive is 
civilized man at his worst. And probably some of the 
direst crimes and cruelties that have been perpetrated in 
the world have occurred in those regions where white 
adventurers and speculators have been allowed to estab- 
lish their supremacy over coloured races without the 
constant control of the Home Government. 

The spirit of Mr. Dillon's criticism is therefore very 
important, though its exact form was perhaps hardly fair. 
Sir Edward Grey was dealing with the Morocco Question 
in so far as it affected our relations with foreign Powers, 
especially Germany. A plebiscite of the inhabitants of 
Morocco had not been suggested as a possibility by any 
critic ; and since the policy of the British Government 
was simply to ' disinterest itself ' in Morocco, it could not 
possibly be accused of maltreating the Moors. 

Neither will any reasonable person argue that Great 
Britain, herself the greatest colonizing Power in the 
world, should object on principle to France or any other 
Power making colonies. The establishment of most 
colonies is a history written in blood, and largely in 
innocent blood. Yet surely none but a paradox-monger 
will maintain that Australia ought to have been left to 
the Blackfellows, or North and South America to the 
Indian tribes ? All that we can demand of the British 
Government is that within its own possessions it shall do 
its utmost to maintain the welfare of its own subject-races 
and vigilantly prevent their oppression. This is a difficult 
work, and we have sometimes failed in it. But, on the 
whole, judged by ordinary human standards, and com- 
pared with colonial or foreign Governments, the Home 
Government's record in this matter is admittedly good. 



6o 



4. THE SEQUEL OF THE MOROCCO TREATY 

The one error which we have recognized in the Morocco 
Treaty was productive of trouble. At first the coast 
seemed clear. France, assured of Great Britain's diplo- 
matic support, and of the general approval of the other 
Powers, proceeded to the task of inducing Morocco to 
reform herself. A scheme of reforms was pressed upon 
the Shereef. Perhaps it was rather too much concerned 
with French interests and monopolies, but on the whole 
it was a comprehensive and excellent scheme, reminding 
one of the numerous programmes of the same sort which 
have been pressed so vainly on the Sultan of Turkey. 
The Shereef procrastinated, the pressure continued, when 
suddenly, on March 31, 1905, the German Emperor in 
person descended in his private yacht on the port of 
Tangier, and made a speech to the world at large. He 
announced that he regarded the Shereef as a free and 
independent sovereign, not bound to obey any foreign 
pressure ; that sudden and sweeping reforms were unde- 
sirable in Morocco ; and that German interests must be 
safeguarded. This speech was followed by a demand for a 
general European conference to settle the affairs of Morocco. 

This action was diplomatically astonishing. Its sud- 
denness, its rudeness, its direct defiance of France in 
a sphere where Germany had previously admitted the 
rights of France to be paramount, produced naturally 
a great excitement. The excitement was deepened by 
the surrounding situation. What had changed in the 
state of Europe between the time when Germany was 
friendly or indifferent about Morocco and the time when 
she suddenly burst into threats ? The answer was unfor- 
tunately plain. France's one ally, Russia, had been 
heavily defeated by Japan, and was powerless for the 
moment in Europe. France was alone, and Germany 
had her at a disadvantage. 

On the other hand, whatever we may think of Germany's 



SEQUEL OF THE MOROCCO TREATY 61 

methods and motives, she had a case. France had made 
an arrangement about Morocco with her two neighbours 
alone, Great Britain and Spain. It was quite a good 
arrangement, but the future of Morocco was a matter of 
public interest, and the rest of Europe had the right to 
be consulted. The end, as it happened, seemed exactly 
to satisfy the demands of justice. Germany carried her 
proposal for a European conference ; representatives of 
the Powers met at Algeciras in January 1906 ; but when 
they met they decided almost all points in favour of France 
and against Germany. 

But meantime, what was the attitude of Great Britain ? 
We were bound by treaty to give ' diplomatic support ' to 
France in the policy which resulted from our Moroccan 
treaty. We gave it. It is hard to see how we could have 
done otherwise. True, France's case was not perfect : 
if we had been absolutely disinterested arbitrators in the 
matter, we should probably have decided that France 
ought to agree to a conference. That, as a matter of fact, 
is what the French Government eventually agreed to do ; 
but at first M. Delcasse, the French Foreign Minister, 
refused to do anything of the kind. There was a sharp 
collision. Germany was wrong on most of the matters 
at issue, and violently wrong in her method of raising the 
question ; but she was justified in asking for a conference. 
France, to whom we had promised our diplomatic support, 
seemed, in her indignation at being bullied, to be inclined 
to refuse a conference. And we took our stand firmly at 
her side. 

It would be interesting to know what our representatives 
said in private to our friend's representatives. It is 
likely enough that there were private warnings and 
appeals for moderation. But in public at any rate Great 
Britain stood with perfect loyalty by the side of France. 
Here no doubt we strike upon one of Sir Edward Grey's 
cardinal principles : if you make an engagement, carry 
out your engagement loyally and with no hedging. 



62 SEQUEL OF THE MOROCCO TREATY 

Here a shrewd objection is raised. It may be said : 
' Then, do you mean to say that, if France had not yielded, 
it would have been right for Great Britain to go to war 
with Germany for the sake of France on the question 
whether there should or should not be a conference, 
Germany being on that point right and France wrong ? 

The answer to that question is important. 

In the first place, it is mere folly to suppose that as 
soon as two Powers definitely come to a disagreement, 
the immediate result is war. As Mr. Gladstone used to 
point out, between the disagreement and the appeal to 
arms there are interposed ' the whole resources of diplo- 
macy '. Unfortunately, as Sir Edward Grey has said : 
' There are some people who seem to take delight in 
suggesting, or in forming the opinion, from whatever 
gossip or information they can get in any quarter, that we 
are near to war ; and the nearer we come to war, the 
greater satisfaction they seem to get out of it. . . . It is 
really as if in the atmosphere of the world there was some 
mischievous influence at work ... as if the world were 
indulging in a fit of political alcoholism ; and the best 
that can be done by those of us who are in positions of 
responsibility is to keep cool and sober.' If there had 
been a deadlock on a point of etiquette like this, the next 
step would have been for some third Power to have sug- 
gested a way out or offered mediation. Half a dozen ways 
out could be thought of. It is only in the event of one 
Power rejecting all proposals and refusing to make any 
of her own that war would have come into the range of 
immediate politics. And in that case it would not have 
been because of the Conference question, but because one 
of the Powers concerned deliberately wished for war. I 
need hardly add that Great Britain would never have been 
that Power. 

As a matter of fact the French Government agreed to 
the summoning of a conference. M. Delcasse resigned, 
and the crisis passed. The Conference met at Algeciras, 



SEQUEL OF THE MOROCCO TREATY 63 

close to Gibraltar, early in 1906, and drew up an Act 
' based upon the threefold principle of the sovereignty 
and independence of his Majesty the Sultan of Morocco, 
the integrity of his dominions, and economic liberty ' 
for all commerce. On nearly all the disputed points the 
majority of the Powers voted with France. Not only 
Great Britain and Russia, but Germany's ally, Italy, 
admitted the claim of France to ' special political interests ' 
as against the German claim of equality for all ; and even 
Austria did not always follow Germany. 

5. THE CRISIS OF 1911 

The fatal weakness of the Act of Algeciras lay in 
the unreality of the principle on which it was based. 
At the very time while the Conference was sitting the 
young Sultan, Abdul-Aziz, was plunging deeper into 
foreign debt and insolvency. In the spring of 1907 
a French doctor was murdered at Marrakesh and the 
French, reluctant to make an expedition into the heart 
of the country, yet unwilling to ignore the murder 
entirely, proceeded to occupy the small town of Udja, 
just across the Algerian border. The brigand Raisuli 
was active near Tangier, and in June succeeded in 
capturing Kaid Sir H. Maclean, Instructor to the 
Moorish Army, for whose ransom the British Govern- 
ment had to pay £20,000. In July there were still more 
serious outbreaks at Casablanca, on the Atlantic coast. 
Certain works for improving the harbour, conducted by 
a French company with the approval of the Sultan, 
came near the old Moslem Cemetery, and reports were 
spread among the neighbouring tribesmen that the 
infidels were desecrating their fathers' graves. The 
tribesmen attacked the European navvies, killed nine 
of them, and then — by a course of reasoning with which 
every student of human folly is familiar — proceeded to 
raid the Jewish quarter of the town. The French 



64 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

decided to occupy Casablanca ; they were opposed and 
heavy fighting ensued. The dead were numbered by 
thousands and it took a year's warfare before General 
Amade had reduced the district to order. These 
deplorable events led to others. Tribe after tribe in the 
interior took up hostilities against the French, and at 
the same time civil war broke out against the Sultan. 
Directly after the bombardment of Casablanca the 
Sultan's brother, Mulai Hand, rose in rebellion against 
him, and was recognized as Sultan by the sacred college 
of Marrakesh. The French, as in duty bound, supported 
Abdul- Aziz, but it soon became evident that Hand was 
the stronger, and the rebellion was said to be encouraged 
by Germany. Abdul-Aziz was finally defeated on 
August 19, 1908, and shortly afterwards retired on 
a pension, while the crown was transferred to his 
brother. Mulai Hand gave guarantees that he would 
respect the Act of Algeciras and was duly recognized 
by the Powers. He showed energy, but completely 
failed to restore order to Mococco. The Rif tribesmen 
in the north defied his authority, and were soon involved 
in a war with Spain on their own account, while a pre- 
tender to the throne, El Roghi, gave considerable 
trouble in the south. This man, with many of his 
followers, was captured and ferociously tortured by 
Mulai Hand in August 1909. 

It is obvious that the ' threefold base ' of the Act of 
Algeciras had collapsed almost before the ink of that 
document was dry. It is easy to distribute blame 
broadcast for this collapse. French intrigues, German 
intrigues, Spanish intrigues, intrigues of financiers and 
speculators free from any particular national bias : all 
these causes are freely alleged to have been in operation, 
and it would need a bold man to meet such charges 
with a denial. Where the corpse lies the vultures will 
gather together. But the most important historical 
fact is the presence, or at least the rapidly expected 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 65 

presence, of the corpse. Had there been no intrigues 
and no financiers in the world, had there been nothing 
but the most skilful and disinterested action by all the 
Powers, one doubts if they could have restored to 
Morocco any really effective sovereignty and inde- 
pendence. As the German Chancellor himself expressed 
it, with a candour not far removed from cynicism 
(Nov. 9, 1911), ' The Algeciras Act was intended to 
maintain the integrity and independence of Morocco 
with a view to the economic development of the country 
for the benefit of the trade of all the Powers parties to it. 
It was soon evident that one of the essential conditions 
was lacking, namely, a Sultan who was actual ruler of 
the country and was in a position to carry out the 
reforms contemplated. . . . This led to ever-growing 
influence on the part of France, for of the four Powers 
which since the seventies possessed treaty rights to 
maintain military missions at the Sultan's court, only 
the French mission had succeeded in establishing its 
position. In the same way France had long supplied 
Morocco with money.' 

It was in this spirit that a Franco-German Declaration 
respecting Morocco had been drawn up in February 
1909. Both parties, as usual, declare their attachment 
to the ' independence and integrity ' of the unfortunate 
empire ; the French Government undertakes not to 
obstruct ' German commercial and industrial interests 
in Morocco ', while the German Government recognizes 
and promises not to impede ' the special political 
interests of France '. The declaration had been 
followed by long negotiations about different parts of 
West Africa, in which Germany was always pressing for 
something more than France — reasonably or unreason- 
ably — was prepared to give. A treaty called ' the 
consortium ', creating a Franco-German chartered com- 
pany in the Congo region, was actually signed on Feb. 15, 
1911, but not ratified. 

1844 e 



66 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

This was the state of things when, in 1910, a year of 
constant uproar culminated in the rebellion of the 
tribes round Fez against the Sultan Mulai Hand. 
By March 1911 Mequinez had been captured by the 
rebels, a new Sultan proclaimed, and Fez invested by 
considerable forces. On April 26, France, at the 
Sultan's call for help, sent a small force to relieve Fez, 
and at the same time sent notice of her action to the 
signatories of the Act of Algeciras. The expedition 
reached Fez after four days' hard fighting, but proved 
insufficient to disperse the tribes. A larger force was 
dispatched, and in conjunction with the Sultan succeeded 
in putting down the rebellion and maintaining order. 
Meantime it showed no sign of evacuating the place. 
The Radical opposition in France maintain, rightly or 
wrongly, that the Europeans in Fez were in no real 
danger and that the expedition was unnecessary ; but 
that difficult question does not come within our present 
purview. We are concerned with the international 
crisis which immediately followed. 

Germany raised no objection to the relief of Fez, 
but she pointed out very reasonably that the inde- 
pendence of Morocco had practically ceased to exist. 
' It is urged that the Sultan himself summoned the 
French to his assistance. But a ruler who summons 
foreign troops to his assistance and who relies solely on 
the support of foreign bayonets is no longer the inde- 
pendent ruler on whose existence the Act of Algeciras 
was based.' (The German Chancellor, Bethmann- 
Hollweg, Nov. 9, 191 1.) Germany therefore, arguing 
that France, not necessarily by any fault of her own, 
had gone beyond the letter and spirit of the Algeciras 
Act, took the line of demanding compensation in Paris. 
She did not propose any longer to defend Morocco ; 
but, if there was plunder going she insisted that she 
should have her share. Such a claim was not particu- 
larly creditable nor strictly just. But, in the atmo- 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 67 

sphere of colonial policy, it was intelligible. France, 
however, saw no good reason why she should make 
sacrifices. The demands for compensation, whatever 
they were, were not accepted ; the French Government 
showed unwillingness to come to a private under- 
standing with Germany. In these circumstances the 
German Government took the curious step of suddenly 
sending a gunboat, the Panther, followed presently by 
a cruiser, the Berlin, to the closed harbour of Agadir on 
the southern coast of Morocco. (July 1, 1911.) 

On this the crisis arose. 

The mission of this gunboat was officially explained 
as intended to protect German subjects, but no one 
seemed even at the time to take this explanation very 
seriously. The Chancellor, speaking when the crisis 
was past, said that the Panther was sent to show that 
Germany had ' the right and the intention to protect 
our subjects in Morocco just as independently as France 
protected hers, as long as she came to no understanding 
with us '. That is : the Act of Algeciras was annulled. 
Germany no longer recognized the ' special political 
interests of France ' though she might be ready to do so 
if France chose to deal. It amounted to a warning : 
' All agreements about Morocco are off. If you do not 
deal with us we shall consider our own interests and 
take any steps we like with gunboats or cruisers or any 
other instruments that we consider suitable.' This is 
also the explanation given by the German Ambassador 
verbally to Sir Edward Grey on July 1. Considering 
that the conditions of 1906 were now swept away, and 
probably could not be restored, ' Germany was prepared 
to seek in conjunction with France some means of 
arriving at a definite understanding on the Morocco 
question.' If no such understanding could be reached, 
well, there was a gunboat, already followed by a cruiser, 
at Agadir. 

This explanation Grey considered very serious. The 

E 2 



68 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

previous treaties, to which we had been parties, were 
regarded by Germany as having ceased to hold, and she 
was now intending, without us, in conjunction with 
France alone — or with France and Spain — to arrive at 
a definite solution of the Moroccan Question. And if 
these negotiations failed the next word seemed to lie 
with the Panther and the Berlin. 

On July 3 Grey asked the Ambassador to call, and 
told him that ' we considered the situation so important 
that it must be discussed in a meeting of the Cabinet ' ; 
and that ' he wished the German Government to learn 
at once that, in our view, the situation was serious and 
important '. On July 4, after the Cabinet meeting, 
Grey explained to the Ambassador the view which the 
Cabinet had taken. Our attitude could not be an 
entirely ' disinterested ' one. We had interests of our 
own at stake. We had treaty obligations to France. 
' A new situation had been created by the dispatch of 
a German ship to Agadir. Future developments might 
affect British interests more directly than they had 
hitherto been affected, and therefore we could not 
recognize any new arrangements that might be come to 
without us.' To this statement the German Ambas- 
sador made no answer at the time, and as the days 
passed brought no answer from his Government. 

This in itself was disturbing. On July 12 it so 
happened that the British Ambassador at Berlin had 
occasion to see the German Foreign Secretary on some 
minor matters, and in the course of the interview con- 
trived to observe : ' that there had been mention of 
a conversation a trois between Germany, France, and 
Spain, the inference being that we were excluded from 
it.' Instead of making any explanation the Foreign 
Secretary merely said that there was no idea of such 
a conversation d trois. And with no further answer the 
days passed till July 21 — a period of seventeen days. 
The German Government made no answer to a special 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 69 

communication from our Cabinet as a whole on a 
matter, which, as we explained, we regarded as ' serious 
and important '. And meantime some negotiations or 
other were going on in Paris. It seemed as if the 
German Government was determined, in spite of our 
explanation to the Ambassador, to keep these negotia- 
tions secret from us ; and such, we afterwards learned, 
was definitely the case. The German Foreign Secretary 
stated : ' The negotiations had begun : both parties 
had mutually agreed to observe the strictest secrecy. 
We took this obligation seriously and did not even 
inform our allies. France adopted a different course, 
and unfortunately communicated not only to the Press 
but also, it appears, in part to her friends, information 
which, inaccurate and incomplete as it was, was calcu- 
lated to rouse suspicion of our intentions. We therefore 
did not negotiate further for a time, as long as the 
secrecy of the negotiations was not guaranteed.' 

It is impossible that our Government should not feel 
uneasy. There was known to be a strong War-party 
in Germany. There was known to be a party in favour 
of a very ambitious colonial policy. We had asked in 
the most earnest way for a very simple assurance and 
had been met by stony silence. In the meantime 
negotiations in Paris began to trickle through. It 
appeared certain, ' and indeed it was the case, that the 
German Government had made demands with regard 
to the French Congo of an extent to which it was 
obvious to everybody who thought of it that neither 
the French Government nor the French Chamber could 
agree.' (Grey, Nov. 27, 1911.) 

' But what ', some critic may ask, ' was there to be 
afraid of ? Why should we object to Germany and 
France bargaining as hard as they chose ? France in 
Morocco had shown that she was well able to look after 
herself.' 

Well, in the first place, we had our own definite 



70 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

interests in Morocco ; our Moroccan trade, and the 
strategical importance of the north coast. But, apart 
from these direct interests of ours, there were, I think, 
two main lines of danger. 

1. Germany might try the policy of bullying France. 
She was much stronger than France, and there was a 
party in Germany openly advocating such a policy on 
the ground that France must either give way and yield 
Germany all she asked, or else risk a war and be 
thoroughly and profitably beaten. The air would be 
cleared ; an enemy crushed, and the French colonies 
added to the German Empire. For the execution of 
this policy it was desirable to keep Great Britain 
outside the negotiations. It would be easier to press 
France hard if she was negotiating alone ; and, if 
matters came to war, the less Great Britain had been 
involved in the quarrel the more likelihood there was of 
her standing out of the war. There was danger in 191 1 
that this party in Germany might get the upper hand, 
as it actually did in 1914, and we had therefore to be on 
our guard. 

As for the war which might be forced on France, we 
were determined, if possible, to prevent it. And as for 
the negotiations, the concessions for which Germany 
was secretly pressing might easily be of a kind that 
would directly threaten our interests. The way to 
check both arms of this policy was to show at once 
that Great Britain was standing by France if France 
needed her. 

2. Germany might try the policy of detaching France 
from Great Britain. We had ourselves had the experi- 
ence of her attempt to detach us from France. (See 
below, pp. 115 ff.) She might now be trying to persuade 
France privately to promise neutrality in Germany's 
next war, as she tried in the previous year to persuade 
us. There was naturally a party in France which was 
somewhat shy of commitments to Great Britain, and 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 71 

might be glad to obtain temporary security at the price 
of dissolving the Entente. This danger would become 
greater if Great Britain took no step to show that she 
would stand by France in the present difficulty. So 
from this point of view, also, we were bound to show our 
interest in France. 

Hardly less imperative was the mere matter of 
prestige. We had been for many years the chief com- 
mercial Power in Morocco ; we had vital strategic 
interests in the north coast. We had taken a leading 
part in the various treaties. We could hardly submit 
to the indignity of being suddenly treated as non- 
existent, while Germany settled with France, in a manner 
which she refused to explain to us, the future of Morocco. 

It is a little difficult to form a clear judgement about 
the reality and imminence of these various dangers. 
A great deal of indirect and unsifted evidence seems to 
show that Germany, if not seeking war, or the humilia- 
tion of France, was at any rate making an experiment 
which might lead to those results. Grey referred in 
the House of Commons to ' information ' which he had 
received. The Times newspaper, in a series of violent 
articles, professed also to have information of an alarm- 
ing kind. And, without laying too much stress on the 
good faith of that ambitious journal, we have seen that 
the German Foreign Minister complained afterwards 
that the French Government had privately given 
information both to ' their friends ' and to ' the Press '. 
On the other hand the official accounts we have of these 
proceedings from inside sources all date from the time 
when the crisis was over and it was to everybody's 
interest to minimize the gravity and disagreeableness 
of it. The information which came to The Times and 
even that which came to Sir Edward Grey in June 191 1 
suggested a much graver state of affairs than do the 
explanations given by the German, French, and British 
spokesmen in November of the same year. 



72 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

In any case during the days of silence from July 4 to 
July 21 the British Cabinet was in a state of justifiable 
anxiety. On July 21 Grey again sent for the German 
Ambassador and explained the British point of view 
under three main heads. (1) We knew that Germany 
had proposed to France a rectification of the Congo 
frontier. ' We thought it possible that a settlement 
might be reached between Germany and France on this 
basis without affecting British interests. We should be 
very glad if this happened ; and it was in the hope that 
it might happen at a later stage that we stood aside.' 
(2) We had heard, however, of much greater demands 
being made on France ; negotiations were still pro- 
ceeding and we hoped they might lead to a satisfactory 
conclusion. But ' it must be understood that, if they 
were unsuccessful, a very embarrassing situation would 
arise '. (That is, Morocco would have collapsed ; the 
old treaties would have become, in Germany's view, 
null and void ; and the new attempt to make a peaceful 
settlement about Morocco would have failed. In fact 
precisely that situation of international anarchy would 
have arisen which the secret treaty of 1904 had been 
intended to prevent.) (3) In the meantime the Ger- 
mans were still remaining at Agadir, and we had no 
information to show what they were doing or seeking 
there. ' We could not tell to what extent the situation 
might be altered to our disadvantage ; and, if the 
negotiations with France came to nothing, we should 
be obliged to do something to watch over British 
interests and to become a party to the discussions.' 
I made this statement,' Sir Edward explained in the 
House, ' because the situation seemed to me to be 
developing unfavourably.' The German Ambassador, 
while deprecating Sir Edward's fears, was still not in 
a position to make any reply on behalf of his Govern- 
ment. 

On the same evening, as it happened, the Chancellor 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 73 

of the Exchequer had to make an official speech at the 
Mansion House. These speeches at the Mansion House 
are generally regarded as important occasions for the 
exposition of ministerial policy, and both Grey and the 
Prime Minister considered that it would make a false 
impression, ' misleading to public opinion here and every- 
where ', if no mention were made of the anxiety which we 
felt about the Moroccan situation. It is easy to guess 
what this false impression would have been. The Cabinet 
was generally supposed to contain both an imperialist and 
a pacifist wing, Mr. Lloyd George being the leader of the 
latter. If, after the language used by the Foreign 
Secretary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer entirely ignored 
the Morocco question and showed no interest in it, it 
would look as if the Cabinet was divided. The party in 
Germany which favoured aggression or ' bluff ' would be 
encouraged in their dangerous belief that Great Britain 
was in no case prepared for action. The question at issue 
really was whether Germany would deliberately refuse to 
explain her intentions on a matter seriously affecting 
our interests and at the same time proceed to settle that 
matter partly by occupying forbidden harbours and 
partly by secret conversations with France. Mr. Lloyd 
George spoke eloquently in the cause of peace and then 
added certain sentences. ' But I am also bound to say 
this ; that I believe it is essential in the highest interests 
not merely of this country but of the world, that Britain 
should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige 
amongst the great Powers of the world. ... If a situation 
were to be forced on us in which Peace could only be 
preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent 
position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and 
achievements, by allowing Britain to be treated, where 
her interests were vitally affected, as if she were of no 
account in the Cabinet of Nations, then I say emphatically 
that Peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable 
for a great country like ours to endure.' 



74 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

The sentiments were unexceptionable, the language 
perfectly polite ; but in their political context they were 
understood, and rightly understood, to mean that, if it 
turned out that British interests were overridden or ignored 
in this secret arrangement which Germany was conducting 
about Morocco, we should not accept that arrangement 
even if we were threatened with war. The whimsical 
point about it is that, on the surface at least, it recalls in 
a somewhat unfortunate manner the speech made by the 
Kaiser at Agadir in 1905, the very speech to which we had 
taken such strong objection (p. 60). 

Now the similarity does not go deep. Mr. Lloyd George 
had not first had the policy of the treaty explained to him 
and expressed his approval of it, and then a year later, 
suddenly and without notice, changed his mind. Mr. 
Lloyd George did not go as a War-Lord in a War-Lord's 
yacht and tell the Moors direct that they were to disregard 
the treaty, and that he would stand their friend if they did. 
But apart from these questions of method the funda- 
mental facts of the two situations were very different. In 
1904 the two Powers most interested in Morocco made 
a treaty together, which they explained in general though 
not in detail to the other Powers of Europe ; notably they 
made arrangements for safeguarding Germany's com- 
mercial interests — the only interests she claimed — and 
submitted them to her and obtained her approval. The 
' secret treaty ', however serious the objections to it may 
have been, did not affect anyavowed interest of Germany's. 
Any lack of consideration which may have been shown 
towards Germany was in no way marked or personal. It 
was merely that, in the course of a very wide and often 
difficult settlement of many questions between England 
and France, there was included one issue on which the 
other Powers of Europe might reasonably have had some 
say. In 1911 the case was very different. A Power which 
had small interests in Morocco but immense military 
strength suddenly announced that all the treaties which 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 75 

we had signed about Morocco were annulled, sent ships 
of war to a harbour where by treaty they were not to go, 
and proclaimed her intention to bring the affairs of 
Morocco to ' a definite solution ' on lines which she 
entirely refused to explain to us ; and this though our 
trade interests in Morocco were about three times as great 
as hers and our strategic interests vital. It would hardly 
have been prudent or even fair towards Germany if we 
had not given a clear warning beforehand that we reserved 
our full right to object to this ' definite solution ' which 
she would not explain. 

Whether Mr. Lloyd George's words were too strong or 
not, the result of the speech was curious. A violent 
storm in the press, both in England and Germany, 
The Times and the Pan-German organs alike trying 
to shout each other down ; a satisfactory explanation 
from the German Ambassador on the 24th, followed 
by a ' very stiff ' interview on the 25th ; and almost 
immediately afterwards a complete change of tone on 
the part of the German Government and a sudden and 
thoroughgoing improvement of relations. What actually 
occurred can only be conjectured ; but it looks as if the 
Mansion House speech, coming on top of Grey's explana- 
tion of July 21, had brought the issue in Germany between 
the Pan-Germans and the Moderates to a sudden head, 
resulting in a victory for the Moderates. This hypothesis 
is rather borne out by the attitude of the Ambassador in 
the ' very stiff ' interview. He there gave Grey a satis- 
factory explanation of the objects and plans of Germany 
in the negotiations, but, on the other hand, forbade him to 
make any public use of the explanation, lest it should look 
as if Germany were yielding to threats. Grey, in return, 
declined to give any public explanation of the Mansion 
House speech, and both parties, as Grey confessed with 
a smile, ' stood on their dignity ' — always a somewhat 
ridiculous proceeding, but doubtless at times necessary. 
On the 27th the Ambassador returned with a message from 



76 THE CRISIS OF 1911 

the German Chancellor. It gave a complete explanation 
of German aims in Morocco, expressed in terms of perfect 
friendliness both to ourselves and France. 

The storm blew over. ' As to the subsequent negotia- 
tions I need only say this. The French Government con- 
sulted us at every point where it seemed at all likely that 
British interests might be affected — most loyally at every 
point— and, except perhaps once or twice on subsidiary 
points of purely economic detail in Morocco itself, we were 
able to say that British interests were not involved by the 
proposals or counter-proposals. . . . And everything we did 
or said in our communications with the French Govern- 
ment was in the direction of helping and not impeding 
the negotiations.' (Grey, Nov. 27, 1911.) 

The Lloyd George speech has been much praised and 
much denounced. That Minister's pacific and friendly 
attitude towards Germany was regarded as beyond sus- 
picion, but this fact only enhanced the effect, for good or 
evil, of the speech. The Radicals pointed with indignation 
to the storm of angry feeling which swept through the 
Press in both countries and professed contemptuously to 
regard the diatribes of The Times, then and always the 
most bitter enemy of the Liberal Government, as a faithful 
representation of the attitude of Sir Edward Grey. 
More moderate opinion saw the justification of the speech 
in the undoubted clearing of the air which immediately 
followed it. Of course there were other causes at work 
also, more than we can hope to trace. Politicians have 
generally inclined to the belief that, to a German Govern- 
ment which was hesitating between two policies, this 
proof of the unity and determination of Great Britain 
was enough to incline the scale against the side of ' bluff ' 
and towards the side of fair dealing. Economists have 
been inclined to lay stress on a different cause for the 
change of Germany's tone, viz. the fact that German 
banks and industrial enterprises were at this moment very 
largely dependent on the capital of French investors. 



THE CRISIS OF 1911 77 

This seems to be true ; and it is confidently asserted that 
about this time a deputation of bankers waited on the 
Kaiser to explain how credit was already shaken owing to 
the disquietude about Morocco, that French capital was 
being withdrawn, and that unless public opinion could be 
reassured the gravest consequences might ensue. Germany, 
in fact, could not declare war, because the money with 
which she would have to wage it was predominantly 
foreign money. If this is true, it would be interesting to 
trace in detail the change which has taken place since 191 1 
in the organization of German finance. 1 

From whatever causes, the tone of Germany after July 
27, 1911, became suddenly moderate ; and the policy of 
the Entente with France seemed, in addition to the 
enormous advantages it brought about in the relations 
between France and Great Britain, to have also done 
some service to the stability of peace in Europe. 

The next stage in the policy of the Ententes was an 
agreement between Great Britain and Russia. 

6. THE ENTENTE WITH RUSSIA : THE 
TREATY OF 1907 

The intimacy induced by co-operation in the Conference 
of Algeciras gave an opportunity for that settlement of 
differences with Russia which was the next object of Sir 
Edward Grey's policy. The enormous relief which had 
resulted to British activities all over the world from the 
settlement with France made our Government all the 
more anxious to have a clean slate with Russia too. In 
the Balkans, fortunately, the aims of the two nations had 
ceased to clash. We had seen the error of our ways, 
and were buttressing up the Turks no longer. There 

1 See Norman Angell, Foundations of International Policy 
(1914), pp. 1 1 5 ff . He quotes The Times Berlin correspondent, 
the British Consul- General in Germany, and the Berlin Bourse 
Gazette. 



78 THE ENTENTE WITH RUSSIA 

remained the danger of our juxtaposition in Asia. All 
along an immense and unsettled frontier, from the Persian 
Gulf to the mountains of Thibet, the two vast empires 
were steadily drawing nearer to one another. Both were 
vigorous Powers, both were ruling and conquering Powers. 
Each felt jealousy and alarm at the advance of the other. 
Now Sir Edward Grey's principle is stated clearly : 
' When the interests of two Powers are constantly touching 
and rubbing against one another,' he says, ' it is hard to 
find a half-way house between constant liability to friction 
and cordial friendship.' 

In 1906 and 1907 there were frank and thorough dis- 
cussions between Great Britain and Russia concerning all 
the points where their interests ' rubbed '. The result 
was the treaty of 1907. This covered the whole line of 
frontier questions : (1) Both parties agreed to abstain 
from any tampering with Thibet ; Thibet was a united 
and peaceful nation and its mountains made a firm frontier. 
(2) Russia recognized the right of Great Britain to control 
the foreign policy of the large and loose medley of tribes 
who acknowledge the rule of the Amir of Afghanistan. 
This control had existed before, but had not been recog- 
nized by Russia. (3) Lastly, in Persia, which was a badly 
decayed empire in a state of chronic disorder, the two 
Powers agreed to confine their interests within certain 
lines, which marked off their respective spheres of in- 
fluence, and undertook to consult one another freely and 
frankly on any difficulties that arose. Meantime the 
' integrity and independence ' of Persia were to be main- 
tained, the ' political status ' of Afghanistan was not to be 
changed — i. e. it was not to be annexed or made a British 
Protectorate — while the ' territorial integrity ' and the 
' internal administration ' of Thibet were not to be inter- 
fered with. That is, it was the natural wish of the two 
Great Powers that the buffer states should be kept intact. 1 

1 The texts are given in Select Treaties and Documents, by R. B. 
Mowat, Oxford Press, 1915, is. 6d. 



THE TREATY OF 1907 79 

The great merits of this treaty are obvious to any- 
reasonable mind. But it has been sharply criticized. 
The arrangements about Afghanistan and Thibet have 
escaped blame in England, though I believe there have 
been some complaints in Russia, on the ground that they 
check Russia's natural ambitions. The Persian arrange- 
ment is attacked on two grounds : (1) the line drawn is 
too favourable to Russia and gives Great Britain a poor 
bargain ; with which is combined (2) the accusation that 
in the practical working of the agreement Sir Edward has 
been both too trustful towards Russian statements and 
too yielding towards Russian demands. (3) The osten- 
sible promise not to intervene beyond a certain line 
amounted, so it is argued, in practice to an encouragement 
to each Power to advance at once up to that line, and 
must result in something like a partition of Persia and the 
ruin of her independence. 

Now if these criticisms stood really on their own feet, 
and had no unspoken impetus behind them, they would 
be easily met. The question who got the best of the 
bargain either in the original treaty or in the various 
points of detail that have arisen in working it out, is 
a question that no one really cares about. In the Russian 
Duma M. Sazonof is accused of having yielded too much 
to the British ; in the House of Commons Sir Edward 
Grey is accused of having yielded too much to the Russians. 
And in both cases the Minister's main answer is that the 
fact of having reached a loyal and honest agreement is such 
a great gain to both parties that it hardly matters which 
of the two has gained most. And as to the delimitation of 
the two spheres of influence, it is clear that, if honestly 
carried out, it did not increase but greatly limited the 
freedom of the two Powers to interfere with Persia. 
The strength of the criticism really lies in the critic's utter 
mistrust of Russia. 

The whole object of the Entente policy was to put an 
end to a state of constant friction, suspicion, and intrigue, 



80 THE ENTENTE WITH RUSSIA 

and to substitute for it a practice of mutual confidence 
and understanding. And the criticisms really rest on 
a sort of half-conscious doctrine that in dealing with 
Russia all friendly relations are undesirable. Let other 
nations make peaceful agreements if they will. Between 
Great Britain and Russia, since a mutual boycott is 
physically impossible, the only healthy relation is either 
hostile intrigue or open war. Our first step, for example, 
should be the subsidizing of the Russian revolutionary 
parties ! Few people, I suppose, would openly profess 
such a doctrine, but the denunciations sometimes uttered 
against the Persian agreement seem to imply something 
very like it. 

It is complained that Sir Edward Grey habitually 
believed the word of the Russian Government. The 
charge is admitted. The purpose of the Entente was to 
achieve a cordial understanding with Russia in place of 
constant friction and suspicion. How silly, how suicidal, 
it would have been, in carrying out the arrangement, to 
re-introduce the very atmosphere that we were trying our 
hardest to avoid ! If we were determined continually 
to throw doubt on the honesty of the Russian repre- 
sentatives and haggle over every dispute that arose, it 
was not much use having any agreement at all. The fact 
is, no two powers could ever co-operate or maintain cordial 
relations if one Government habitually acted towards 
the other as English Russophobes would like to act towards 
Russia. This whole class of problem is of the utmost 
importance ; and I cannot but feel that both from the 
standpoint of common sense and from that of international 
idealism, Sir Edward Grey's principle is triumphantly 
right and ought never to have been controverted by any 
Liberal or Socialist. It is all very well for thorough- 
going hard-crusted Jingoes, who take a pride in hating 
foreigners and encouraging war-scares, to argue that the 
Government of Russia — or France, or Germany, or the 
United States for that matter — is so inherently treacherous 



THE TREATY OF 1907 81 

that we honest Englishmen ought never to admit them to 
any treaties or negotiations without showing at every 
point that we regard them as rogues. I have at different 
times read, in journals of extreme views, articles preaching 
this doctrine with regard to all the principal nations : the 
French were all scoundrels at one time because of the 
Dreyfus case ; before that it was the Americans because 
of various lynching scandals, before that the Russians 
because of pogroms, now of course it is the Germans for 
a thousand reasons. And if we look at foreign journals 
of the same type we shall find it is the English, because 
of the Boer War or the Militant Suffragists or because 
Home Rule is denied to Ireland. The truth is that the 
ordinary public in every nation is mostly very ignorant 
of the home politics of every other nation and at the same 
time very credulous of evil. It has been cynically said 
that, if all our private lives were suddenly revealed, there 
is not one living person who would not be cut by all the 
others. Without going so far as that, there is certainly 
no nation in the world which would not be rejected as an 
outcast from society if all the accusations printed against 
it in foreign newspapers were proved true. 

' That is all very well ', it may be answered. ' But is 
it not the case that some nations do put themselves outside 
the pale ? The German Emperor made an intimate 
alliance, and drove some very lucrative bargains, with 
Abdul the Damned at the moment when that potentate 
was conducting the Armenian massacres ; that was 
generally regarded as a rather scoundrelly proceeding, 
but on your principles it was right ? ' I quite admit that 
there are degrees. There is an extreme degree of proved 
iniquity in a government which would justify other 
nations in declaring war on it, even if their own interests 
were not affected. There is another degree which, if not 
justifying war, ought at least to prevent alliance and co- 
operation. Cordial confidence in the recent government 
of Mexico, for instance, would present difficulties. But, 

1844 f 



82 THE ENTENTE WITH RUSSIA 

all the same, this principle of putting a civilized nation 
beyond the pale from disapproval of its home politics is 
a monstrously dangerous one, and to apply it to Russia 
would in my opinion be both gross injustice and stark 
folly. 

Russia is the least and latest civilized of European 
Powers. She has been held chained later than the rest 
of us by a bad tradition of corruption, of drunkenness, 
of lying diplomacy, of obscurantism, of government by 
spies and secret police. She is passing through a long- 
drawn revolution, which began with the emancipation 
of the serfs and is not yet near its end, a revolution con- 
ducted sometimes by the bomb and the revolver against 
the knout and the gallows ; sometimes by reasoning 
and enlightenment on the one side and gradual measures 
of reform on the other ; practically always, on both 
sides, by lives of heroic courage and devoted public 
work. Russia's claim to a high place among the leading 
nations of the world rests chiefly upon her non-political 
achievements, on her incomparable literature, her music 
and science and art, and the brilliant growth of her uni- 
versities ; but any one who will study the actual bills 
passed by the Duma in the last five or six years in the 
matters of education, social reform, peasant adminis- 
tration and justice, public health, land tenure and 
labour-insurance, will, I think, realize that hardly any 
nation in the world is advancing faster. It is worth 
noting also that in the matter of Foreign Policy, 
M. Sazonoff has been a singularly peaceful and straight- 
forward influence. He has been the object of constant 
attacks in the Duma on this ground, and especially for 
his over-conciliatory attitude towards Germany. 

The fact is that we English Liberals and Socialists are 
apt to form our conception of Russia from the accounts 
of the political exiles. All our natural sympathies con- 
spire to make us see with their eyes, their beauty of 
character often fascinates us, and the martyrdom they 



THE TREATY OF 1907 83 

have endured blots out from our minds all thought of 
their possible errors or even crimes. Yet all history 
teaches us how little the stories of exiles are to be trusted. 
Republican and Imperial France were not what the 
Emigres depicted ; eighteenth-century England was not 
what she was supposed to be among the Jacobites at the 
Court of Versailles : Russia cannot really be like the 
picture drawn by Free Russia and the revolutionary 
refugees. And certainly our other authorities speak with 
a very different voice. There are many English travellers 
and social students who have specially tried to know 
Russia. Best of all, perhaps, there is the great company 
of realistic Russian novelists. These writers differ of 
course in detail one from another : they give pictures 
of the Russian people and the Russian Government 
sometimes favourable and sometimes extremely un- 
favourable ; but they certainly do not suggest to their 
most excitable reader that the Russian Empire is an 
institution so iniquitous that it ought to be put outside 
the pale of human society. Such ideas belong to the 
politics of romance. 



7. PERSIA : THE WORKING OF THE 
TREATY OF 1907 

These, it may be said, are general considerations. 
They may be generally valid, but how do they stand 
when confronted by the particular facts ? ' While 
Persia struggled,' writes a Nationalist critic, ' Great 
Britain and Russia have stood by with bludgeons . . . 
and have smitten her to the ground whenever one of her 
more convulsive death-struggles bore the appearance 
of an attempt to rise and walk.' If anything remotely 
like that description is true, most Liberals will feel that 
too high a price has been paid for our friendship, and 
perhaps even for our peace, with Russia. 

f 2 



84 PERSIA 

Now I do not know Persia, and I cannot see my way 
clear through the almost maddening complexities, some- 
times tragic and sometimes grotesque, which make up 
Persian history for the last ten years. I have read a 
certain number of books and articles, I have read some 
thousands of official dispatches on Persian matters, in 
order to form some kind of opinion in my own mind 
about our policy. In result, I have not discovered a 
satisfactory solution of the Persian problem. I do not 
think our policy has been successful, yet I do not see 
any other policy that would not probably have been 
worse. Things were perhaps better in 1913 than they 
were a few years before ; but we have certainly not 
enabled Persia to rise, under a constitutional govern- 
ment, from the slough of anarchy and insolvency in 
which she lay under Mohammed Ali. I do not feel any 
enthusiasm for our Persian record. On the other hand, 
if one takes the various crises as they arise, and 
considers the telegrams on which Sir Edward Grey has 
to take action and the decisions which he gives, it is 
usually very hard indeed to think what better decision 
could have been taken. Reasonable, helpful, firm, 
sometimes over-scrupulous, invariably loyal and honest, 
the decisions of the British Foreign Secretary almost 
always leave the situation rather better than they found 
it. After all, it is not always the fault of the doctors if 
the patient dies. And I do not think that any one who 
has not read the Blue Books can really form an adequate 
conception of the chaos out of which the new Persian 
Government was trying helplessly to build up the con- 
stitutional and independent state of its ideal. Governors 
who have no troops, Governors whose troops take ' bast ', 
or sanctuary, whenever they are asked to move, Gover- 
nors who weep when told to execute a robber because 
the robber's blackmail formed their main source of 
income ; armies in the command of lunatics ; armies 
composed of professional robbers and professional 



WORKING OF THE TREATY OF 1907 85 

clergymen ; armies which march out to fight each other 
and end by swapping head-quarters instead ; roads 
which can only be used when the weather is too severe 
for the robbers to venture out ; robbers who have to 
be given a pension to induce them to leave Persia ; 
robbers who are made Governors-General to induce them 
to put down other robbers ; solemn Khans of the desert 
depositing their oil-mine shares as security for their good 
behaviour on a particular road ; honest wages nowhere 
and blackmail everywhere, and amidst it all the Baluchis 
raiding in the south and the ex-Shah's partisans and 
relations continually popping up with new rebellions in 
the north ; the Cabinet and the Chamber quarrelling, 
Governments resigning, Ministers taking ' bast ' from 
their opponents in the nearest consulate, and their 
opponents taking ' bast ' from them ; rebels taking 
' bast ', unpaid troops taking ' bast ', the officials who 
ought to have paid them taking ' bast ' ; Prime Ministers, 
leaping into the nearest coach and bidding the coach- 
man drive headlong to Europe : the disasters which 
ensue from such a state of things need not be put down 
forthwith to the fault of foreign diplomats. 1 

Let us take certain points in the history which seem 
specially important. 

1 Taking bast seems generally to consist in packing up provisions 
as if for a picnic and then settling quietly down in some place 
where your presence causes some inconvenience and where 
your enemies will not venture to do you violence, e. g. a Consulate, 
a Governor-General's stables, the steps of a Treasury, &c. Bast 
can be taken by a single person in fear of injury, but is generally 
practised by large crowds : e.g. on one occasion 3,000 people, 
with food and musical instruments, suddenly sat down in the 
yard round a telegraph office belonging to the Eastern Telegraph 
Company. It was their way of protesting against the reforms 
of a neighbouring philanthropist. They were coaxed away after 
three days. Residents in Persia accuse the Blue Books of softening 
down the real facts in order not to distress the Foreign Office. 
If this is true, Persia must be a more astonishing country than is 
indicated above. 



86 PERSIA 

The chief provisions of the treaty of 1907 were as 
follows : 

1. North of a certain line (Kasr-i-Shirin Isfahan Yezd 
Kakh to the junction of the three frontiers), Great 
Britain gave an undertaking to seek no political or com- 
mercial concession, and to refrain from opposing the 
acquisition of such concessions by Russia. 

2. South of a certain line (Afghan frontier Gazik 
Birjend Kerman Bander- Abbas), Russia gave a similar 
undertaking to Great Britain. 

3. Between these lines either country might obtain 
concessions. 

4. Existing concessions should be respected. 

5. Should Persia fail to pay her debts to either Power, 
each Power reserved the right to pay itself out of the 
revenues of its own sphere of influence. 

In addition to the treaty, a letter was published in 
which Russia recognized the special interest of Great 
Britain in the Persian Gulf. This letter was highly 
important, as we had been for a long time in occupation 
of the Persian Gulf and were responsible for buoying, 
lighting, and policing its waters. It was a position which 
we had not consciously sought, but to which we had been 
led by over a century of work against the Slave Trade 
and piracy and general insecurity and the traffic in arms. 
At one time, for instance, the Turkish Government asked 
us to remove our buoys, as it desired to put down its own. 
We removed them ; and then, since no Turkish buoys 
appeared and the waters were dangerous, after about 
a year's waiting, put them down again. However, the 
Gulf was now definitely under British influence, and in 
pre-entente times it had formed a specially sensitive spot 
where Russia might always cause us annoyance, or even 
force us into a quarrel. 

The Russian sphere of influence is far and away larger, 
richer, and more important than the British, and the 
stipulation about the Gulf is hardly enough to redress 



WORKING OF THE TREATY OF 1907 87 

the balance. But the fact is, that Russia's interest in 
Persia is much greater than ours. Persia has a conter- 
minous frontier with Russia for over a thousand miles, 
lies just in the line of Russia's natural expansion, and 
has far more trade and intercourse with Russia than 
with any other Power. (The figures of trade are, in 
millions sterling : Russia 8-29, Britain 3-12, Turkey 1-38, 
and the other Powers nowhere.) Also the most satis- 
factory part of the Persian army is the so-called ' Cossack 
Brigade ', trained and commanded by Russian officers 
since 1879. 

Great Britain's interest in Persia was chiefly a negative 
one. We objected to a state of chronic disorder and 
intrigue which hampered our trade and was likely to 
lead to trouble between us and Russia ; we objected to 
the establishment of Russia in positions which might 
threaten our Indian frontier, and we could not allow any 
naval Power to establish itself in the Persian Gulf, on 
the flank of our Indian communications. For the rest, 
it is our interest, even from the most selfish point of view, 
that Persia should be as large and healthy as possible. 

On the whole, therefore, Great Britain has no reason 
to complain of the circumstance that, by the Agree- 
ment, she gets less than Russia does. She gets the great 
fact of agreement and security from hostile intrigue. 

But what about Persia ? Has she any right to com- 
plain of the Treaty ? On the face of it, clearly not. 
There is no wrong to Persia in making arrangements 
about ' commercial concessions ' which she may (or may 
not) in the future grant to Britain or Russia. Persia is 
in that state of development in which she needs and will 
continue to need roads, railways, mining plant, police 
forces, &c, and cannot pay for them herself. She must 
in the first instance get them either by raising foreign 
loans or by granting concessions to foreign companies. 
That the concessionaires, if not constantly watched, are 
likely to swindle her may be assumed as self-evident. 



8S PERSIA 

All such companies need watching, and foreign com- 
panies in a weak and corruptly governed country like 
Persia need very particular watching. But the alterna- 
tive policy, to refuse all loans to Persia and to accept 
no concessions from her, would be merely cruel. It 
would condemn Persia to permanent stagnation, and 
prevent her attaining either prosperity or settled 
government. As a matter of fact, the British companies 
in Persia seem to have behaved well and to be rather 
popular with the Constitutional party. And, apart 
from vague charges, I have not come across any proved 
misconduct on the part of the Russians. 

Furthermore, it seems on the whole desirable that, if 
concessions and loans are necessary, Persia should be 
induced to rely for them on her two responsible neigh- 
bours rather than flung open to the speculative and 
often corrupt overtures of the financial world at large. 
Most of the money borrowed by the Persian Govern- 
ment before 1907 was at 12 to 15 per cent, interest. 
Under the Russo-British entente in 1913 they had only 
to pay 7 per cent., and some of the better-secured loans, 
issued at 85, bore only 5 per cent. On the one hand the 
security was greatly improved, and on the other the 
organizers of the loan were not speculators anxious to 
make money, but responsible Governments anxious to 
have order established in Persia. This is such a great 
improvement, in itself, that it seems justifiable of the 
two Powers to have actually vetoed loans from other 
sources. On one particular occasion, it may be, some 
private bank or foreign company could offer better 
terms for the sake of getting a financial foothold in 
Persia or even for the sake of working some political 
intrigue. But there was the danger of the country 
becoming a Tom-tiddler's ground for speculators, and 
the further grave disadvantage that, in case of Persia's 
failure to meet her liabilities, an unknown army of 
creditors with unknown and untested claims would have 



WORKING OF THE TREATY OF 1907 89 

appeared, demanding satisfaction and refusing to be 
bound by the proposals of the two Governments. As 
far as loans and concessions are concerned, it seems to 
me that the principle of the Agreement was right. And 
another rule also, which was not part of the Agreement 
but was applied in practice, seems reasonable and legiti- 
mate, though it has been furiously attacked. I mean 
the claim of the Powers, when they advanced money to 
the Persian Government, to insist on some control over 
the spending of it. The loans which had reduced Persia 
to the neighbourhood of bankruptcy before 1907 had 
for the most part been merely squandered or embezzled ; 
and neither squandering nor embezzlement, as even 
Mr. Shuster amply testifies, had very greatly slackened 
under the new regime. It was no good pouring money 
into that empty treasury unless there was some security 
that the money would be reasonably spent. The chief 
criticism which might, I think, fairly be passed on the 
loan policy of the two Powers is that, on one or two 
occasions, the loans might have been more prompt and 
generous and the supervision more effective. 

So much for the principle of the Agreement. But 
critics suggest that, even if well meant, it was disloyally 
carried out, especially by Russia. For one thing, they 
urge, Russia was always conspiring with the Shah 
against the Constitutional Government. 

The history on this point is curious. The Persian 
Revolution of 1905-6 was, as a matter of fact, stimulated 
and guided by the example of the Russian Revolution. 
Naturally the sympathy of the Russian official classes 
was instinctively royalist and anti-constitutional, and 
the surprising thing is that they behaved as correctly 
and honestly as they did. No doubt various private 
traders and Cossacks, and even consuls, may have 
behaved pretty badly, but one receives an impression 
of great good faith and loyalty both from the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, M. Sazonof, and the Minister in 



9© PERSIA 

Teheran, M. Poklewski-Koziell. In November 1907 the 
Shah Mohammed Ali was found to be intriguing against 
the constitution which he had sworn to observe. Imme- 
diately the Russian and British Ministers warned him, 
and he gave way. In the following February two bombs 
were thrown at him while he was driving. It does not 
seem very blameworthy that in the following June, 
when feeling was highly excited in Teheran, the Russian 
Minister warned the Nationalists that ' grave conse- 
quences might ensue if anything happened to the Shah '. 
(The I.L.P. pamphlet which expresses indignation at 
this warning does not mention the two bombs.) Shortly 
afterwards the Shah departed from Teheran, leaving 
orders for his bodyguard to disperse the ' Mejliss ' or 
National Assembly. The bodyguard consisted of Per- 
sian ' Cossacks ' with Russian officers ; and they obeyed 
the Shah just as the Swiss Guard obeyed Louis XVI. 
Great Britain and Russia intervened ; prevented the 
Shah from carrying out his plan for abolishing the 
Mejliss, and forced him to hold a general election. In 
the course of the civil war which followed, the Powers 
chiefly devoted themselves to keeping order. The 
Russians intervened once at Tabriz to save the Consti- 
tutionalists, who were besieged by the Shah's troops ; 
the fortunes of the Royalists paled, and eventually even 
the faithful Cossack bodyguard went over to the Con- 
stitutional side. The Shah then took ' bast ' in the 
Russian consulate — a consulate is the regular sanctuary 
in Persia ; the British would have done just as well — 
and abdicated. He was granted a pension and escorted 
off the soil of Persia by a mixed guard of Russian Cos- 
sacks and Indian Sowars. So far the Russian record 
seems to me very respectable. They did from time to 
time shelter divers defaulting princes and princesses 
from bailiffs and other officers of the law. But what 
loyal Russian, with any sentiment in him, could be 
expected to do otherwise ? The gravest charge which 



WORKING OF THE TREATY OF 1907 91 

can be clearly established against them is that they con- 
tinued to keep their small garrison at Tabriz when both 
the British and the Persian Governments considered that 
all need for it had passed and repeatedly pressed for its 
withdrawal. 

The year 1909 saw a new Shah, Ahmad Mirza, and 
a new Mejliss ; an interminable wrangle about the loan 
from the two Powers, which the new Government 
wanted, the extreme Nationalists opposed, and the 
Powers would not grant without some control over the 
spending of it ; in the provinces general disorder, and 
in special an attack by robbers on the Russian Consul- 
General at Bushire, and another on the British repre- 
sentative at Shiraz. In this latter two Indian soldiers 
were killed. A British note was presented in November 
1909 insisting on reparation and on better policing of 
the road ; and, since nothing had been done by October 
1910, it was followed by an ultimatum. Unless order 
were restored on the Ispahan-Bushire road within three 
months, Indian troops would be sent to police it. This 
threat was never carried out. The British Government 
was greatly averse to taking such a step, and went on 
endeavouring to restore security by strongly backing the 
new Regent, Nasr-ul-Mulk, while the extreme National- 
ists still thought it their duty to paralyse the Govern- 
ment. The Regent was at first fairly successful, but 
in December 1912 a shooting party of two British officers 
with some Indian sowars was attacked near Shiraz, and 
Captain Eckford killed. 

An armed police force was a crying necessity, espe- 
cially in the south. An offer of British-Indian police 
was made, but declined by the Persian Government and 
not pressed by the British. Russians were out of the 
question. Eventually Sweden, as a remote and dis- 
interested Power, was asked, and consented, to send 
some gendarmerie officers. This arrangement has been 
much criticized, and was probably only a second-best. 



92 PERSIA 

The Swedes knew nothing of Persia, neither its language, 
its customs, its manner of warfare, nor even the ordinary 
rules of health that must be practised in a hot climate. 
And it is probable that, if Persia, and Russia had both 
approved, a force of native tribesmen under British- 
Indian officers would have been much more rapidly 
satisfactory. However, the officers appear to have been 
honest and energetic, and the force which they trained, 
though consisting of poor material, irregularly paid and 
insufficient in numbers, is said by 1914 to have become 
the most reliable in Persia. 

More serious still were the royalist outbreaks in favour 
of the ex-Shah. His partisans were in a state of chronic 
rebellion or conspiracy, as also were the extreme Nation- 
alists. In 1909-10 a royalist rising in the province of 
Azerbaijan, in the extreme north-west, was victorious 
until duly crushed by the Russians. Another royalist 
movement was started in the same province by a Russian 
officer of Persian extraction ; he was promptly captured 
by the Russians and his rebellion suppressed. There 
was constant disorder in this province, especially in the 
chief town, Tabriz, and Russia began to be more drastic 
in her methods of repression. Eventually Mohammed 
Ali himself secretly landed at Gumesh Tepe on the 
Caspian Sea and proclaimed himself Shah. I see no 
reason to suspect the Russian Government of having 
connived at this enterprise. The story of an interview 
at Vienna between Mohammed Ali and the Russian 
Ambassador has been exploded. But discipline is bad 
in the Russian Foreign Office, and it is likely enough that 
various individual Russians did not report to their 
superiors what they should have reported. In any case, 
when once the Shah had landed, Russia was not disposed 
to suppress him. She had put down one royalist rebel- 
lion after another, when the constitutional Government 
had been unable to cope with them. She had by nature 
no liking for constitutionalists as against anointed 



WORKING OF THE TREATY OF 1907 93 

kings, and she proposed to Great Britain to let the 
Shah have his chance and then support whatever govern- 
ment proved to have the greatest hold on the country. 
Great Britain maintained firmly that he could not be 
recognized. As a matter of fact there ensued civil war 
on a large scale, at the end of which the royalists were 
defeated everywhere except in the north-west. But 
meantime a new source of confusion had arisen, the most 
ironic piece of tragedy in the whole story. 



8. PERSIA CONTINUED : MR. MORGAN SHUSTER 
AS TREASURER-GENERAL 

Of all the many difficulties with which the Persian 
Government had to struggle, the worst and most funda- 
mental was lack of money. The country had great 
possibilities. But habitual disorder had destroyed both 
agriculture and industry ; the administration was habitu- 
ally corrupt, and commerce could not stand up against the 
perpetual presence of robbery and blackmail. A Govern- 
ment which had first a large armed police force, and 
secondly the money to pay it, could at least have begun 
to make head against the innumerable forces of disorder. 
What they needed was a Finance Minister Extraordinary, 
honest, able, courageous, experienced, and possessed of 
extremely wide powers. 

It seemed as if Providence had shown them the very 
man. Great Britain and Russia cordially agreed to the 
appointment of an American mission of financial advisers, 
headed by Mr. Morgan Shuster. Mr. Shuster knew 
nothing of Persia, but had had important experience of 
Customs work in Cuba and in the Philippines after the 
Spanish- American War. He was a man of irreproachable 
integrity and indomitable resolution. Before he had 
been in Persia a fortnight he presented to the Mejliss 
a Bill, drawn by his own hand, in which he demanded 



94 PERSIA 

' the necessary powers ' for carrying out his grave responsi- 
bility. The ' necessary powers ' amounted to something 
like a dictatorship. Mr. Shuster was made Treasurer- 
General, and became the chief ruling power in Persia. 
When it further appeared that he considered himself the 
servant of an independent Persia, that he ignored the 
existence of Russia and Great Britain and refused to call 
at the Embassies, the Nationalist majority in the Mejliss 
obeyed his every word. 

It seemed almost too good to be true, that Persia 
should thus be offered the chance of salvation. And it 
was. Ironic Fate had decreed that one small wrong- 
headedness in Mr. Shuster should wreck everything. In 
a situation which needed, among greater qualities, a con- 
siderable degree of tact and fairmindedness, Mr. Shuster 
happened to be both a very headstrong man and a pre- 
judiced Russophobe. He acted like the head of an 
independent kingdom, intolerant of control within and 
impatient of diplomatic courtesies without. One only 
wishes that before his assumption of office he had had 
two hours' conversation with Grey himself or with some 
one who knew the problems and difficulties of Persia. 

His first quarrel was with the Persian Cabinet. He 
vetoed their policy by refusing supplies ; the scene 
reached such a pitch that the Prime Minister, Sipahdar, 
a man generally well spoken of by our Consuls, fled from 
the room and ordered his coachman to drive to Europe. 
He was eventually induced to return, but Mr. Shuster 
refused to work with him, and the Government, which 
had been doing rather well in great difficulties, was again 
paralysed. Meantime, Mr. Shuster became the pro- 
tector of the extreme Nationalists, associated intimately 
with men of somewhat turbulent records, and especially 
made no concealment of his detestation of Russia. 

He needed a force of armed police for Treasury pur- 
poses, and for some reason would not make use of the 
Swedes. Perhaps they were not sufficiently under his 



MR. SHUSTER AS TREASURER-GENERAL 95 

control. He formed a new gendarmerie, and proposed 
that an English soldier, Major Stokes, should be put in 
command of it. The appointment, on its own merits, 
would seem to have been a very good one. But as the 
force would be bound to act in the north as well as in 
the south, the proposal was not one which we could 
quite expect Russia to approve. Grey consulted St. 
Petersburg, and the Russian Government not unreason- 
ably suggested that either a Swede should be appointed 
or that there should be two forces of gendarmes, one for 
the south and one for the north, commanded by an 
Englishman and a Russian respectively. Sir Edward 
Grey is accused by Mr. Shuster of betraying him in the 
matter of this appointment. The truth seems to be 
that Mr. Shuster's sanguine temperament and his habit 
of ' rushing things ' made him believe that he had only 
to force Major Stokes's appointment through and Grey 
was bound to back him. He induced the unhappy 
Cabinet to agree to the appointment, and then found 
it vetoed by Russia with the full concurrence of Grey. 

Mr. Shuster proceeded to act rather like the doomed 
hero of some Greek tragedy. His stubbornness was his 
undoing. He proceeded to appoint three other British 
subjects as his financial agents : one at Shiraz, which was 
in the British sphere ; one at Ispahan, just inside the 
Russian sphere ; the third, Mr. Lecoffre, at Tabriz, in 
the very heart of the Russian sphere, and close to the 
Russian border. Mr. Lecoffre was not by birth an 
Englishman, like Major Stokes, but he was proud of 
being a British subject, and happened also to be a pro- 
nounced Russophobe. The Russian Government had 
nothing to say against the appointment at Shiraz ; they 
agreed to make no objection to the appointment at 
Ispahan, as it was far south, and only on the edge of 
their sphere. But they did object, as Sir Edward Grey 
had warned Mr. Shuster that they were bound to object, 
to the appointment at Tabriz. Mr. Shuster took no 



96 PERSIA 

notice of the objection, and persisted in the appointment 
of Mr. Lecoffre as well as the two others. 

The final clash came in a curious manner. Mr. Shuster 
had decided — not unjustly, as far as one can judge — to 
confiscate the large estates of a brother of the ex-Shah, 
Shoa-es-Sultaneh. Part of this prince's property was 
a house which was mortgaged to the Russian bank — or so 
at least the bank claimed — and which lay close to the 
Russian Consulate. Now Russians engaged in commerce 
and the consular service seem, naturally enough, to 
have less sense of correct behaviour or less control over 
their feelings than ministers and diplomats. And when 
Mr. Shuster's Treasury officials came to seize this house 
the Russian Consul sent men to drive them away, and 
is said to have been reprimanded by his Minister for 
doing so. Mr. Shuster immediately sent one gendarme 
with an explanation to the Consulate and a hundred 
gendarmes with rifles to the mortgaged house. There 
was resistance and some trouble, and, instead of apolo- 
gizing, or negotiating, or attempting a compromise, 
Mr. Shuster, through the Cabinet, demanded the recall 
of the Russian Consul-General. 

This was the end. The Russians, as seems to be their 
way in Persian matters, after a great deal of rather loose- 
jointed tolerance, burst into a blaze of anger. They 
presented an ultimatum, demanding the withdrawal of 
the gendarmes and an apology. This was accepted by 
the Prime Minister and what remained of the Cabinet. 
It was utterly refused by Mr. Shuster and the Nationalist 
Mejliss. Russian troops began to move, and a second 
ultimatum demanded the dismissal of Mr. Shuster and 
Mr. Lecoffre, an engagement that no further appoint- 
ments of foreigners should be made without the consent 
of the two Powers, and lastly— the only cruel part of 
the demand — that Persia should pay the cost of the 
Russian expedition. By the time the troops had reached 
Kasvin the ultimatum was accepted, and a few weeks 



MR. SHUSTER AS TREASURER-GENERAL 97 

later Mr. Shuster had left Persia. It ought to have been 
mentioned that he had spent part of his scanty leisure 
in writing a fierce anti-Russian pamphlet, which was 
translated into Persian and circulated broadcast. 

I can well understand, though I think such a view is 
far too despairing, how a patriotic Persian may feel 
that Mr. Shuster's dismissal marked the downfall of his 
country's hopes. But I can hardly understand how 
any one in the world could have expected the Russian 
authorities to submit to Mr. Shuster much longer. And 
surely it is manifest that, if the British Government 
intended to maintain the Anglo-Russian understanding 
and to abide by the terms of its own treaty, it could not 
possibly have continued to support Mr. Shuster. As 
Sir Edward Grey said in the House, ' the object of the 
agreement was to prevent the two nations mining and 
counter-mining against each other in the somewhat 
squalid diplomatic struggle which had gone on for years, 
each trying to gain an advantage at the expense of the 
other, we always troubled about the Indian frontier on 
the one side, and the Russian Government always afraid 
that we were going to steal some advantage towards 
their frontier on the other.' If that object was to be 
attained, Mr. Shuster had undoubtedly to go. 

The Russian troops, meanwhile, were in occupation 
of Resht and Tabriz, and had marched as far south as 
Kasvin. It is possible that if left alone they might have 
been induced to retire. But they were, naturally enough, 
attacked by Nationalist bands, both at Resht and at 
Tabriz. The Shiah priests, who in Persia had often taken 
an active part in preaching strife, both on the Nationalist 
and on the Royalist side, preached a holy war against 
Russia. Guerrilla fighting broke out, and the Russian 
troops who bombarded Tabriz found the bodies of their 
comrades mutilated. They forthwith put to death eight 
ringleaders of the Nationalists, among them the chief 
Mullah of that province, who had been the centre of the 

1S44 G 



98 PERSIA 

' holy war '. According to Nationalist statements, they 
cut this man in two pieces and marched between them 
into the citadel. This ferocious act was adopted from 
an ancient Persian custom, and was no doubt intended 
to impress and cow the arch-priest's followers, the more 
so as it was done on a sacred day. The Russians have 
never since evacuated Tabriz, and are probably in per- 
manent occupation of the north-west corner province 
of which Tabriz is the centre. But for the British Agree- 
ment, one may suspect, they would have occupied it six 
or seven years earlier. 

Sir Edward Grey succeeded in getting them to retire 
from Kasvin and the interior. (They have returned 
there during the present war.) The two Powers together 
compelled the ex-Shah to return to Europe, under pain 
of being deprived of his pension. A Belgian Customs 
officer, M. Mornard, who was considered the best man 
available both by the Russians and by our Consul- 
General, was appointed to succeed Mr. Shuster at the 
Treasury, and £400,000 advanced to him for necessary 
expenses. Mr. Shuster accuses him of dishonesty, and 
I believe he has since resigned. 

The same miserable tale continues up to the end of 
1913, where the last Blue Book ends, the mischief-maker- 
in-chief being now not the ex-Shah, but the lunatic 
Prince Salar-ed-Dowleh. What has happened since 
August 1914 is, I imagine, known to no one. In reading 
the detailed correspondence it is easy to understand 
how any of the three principal parties concerned might 
be excused for losing patience with the others. The 
Russians, sick of continual disorder and anti-Russian 
propaganda, continual conspiracies and shifts of govern- 
ment, continual advances of money which are consumed 
as soon as given and lead to no permanent result, tend 
to say : ' Appoint at once a strong and honest govern- 
ment which will maintain order and be friendly to Russia, 
and we will give you one last chance. Otherwise, if you 



MR. SHUSTER AS TREASURER-GENERAL 99 

cannot preserve order, we can and shall. And if any 
more of your mullahs go preaching murder, we shall 
again cut them in two and march between the pieces.' 
The Persian Government, made impotent by utter lack 
of money, unable to collect its own taxes or police its 
own roads, conspired against on every side by ex-princes 
who try to curry favour with foreign governments, 
harassed by demands for the repayment of advances 
which have barely sufficed for the vital needs of the 
moment, undermined in their prestige by the constant 
intervention of foreign consuls and foreign troops, and 
stabbed in the back meantime by their own extremist 
countrymen, are tempted either to resign office and fly 
to Europe, or else to say to the two Powers : ' For 
Heaven's sake give us five or six million pounds and a free 
hand, and stand out of the way till we can establish 
ourselves in effective power.' And Sir Edward Grey . . . 
Well, to illustrate his invariable tone, let us take two 
typical telegrams. The first is No. 527 in the Blue Book 
Persia (1) 1913, addressed to our Consul-General, who, 
after almost infinite patience, had at last advised drastic 
action in a new emergency. 

' Your telegram of the 15th December : Murder of 
Captain Eckford. The question of the policy we should 
adopt in the event of the Persian Government being 
unable to punish the culprits, has been engaging my 
attention, and I have considered carefully your recom- 
mendation that we should in that event prepare for an 
expedition of British troops to Southern Persia to exact 
reparation. 

' This proposal is, in my own opinion, open to grave 
objections. 

' Such an expedition would entail heavy expenditure, 
as the force dispatched would have to be large enough 
to make its success certain, and it would necessarily 
suffer considerable losses. A more important objection 
is, however, that we should probably be compelled, after 

g 2 



ioo PERSIA 

the termination of the operations, to occupy permanently, 
or at any rate for a long period, a large part of Southern 
Persia. The independence of Persia would be finally 
destroyed, and our action would be the direct cause of 
the partition of the country. 

' I am strongly opposed to such a policy. I do not 
think there is sufficient ground at present for giving up 
hope of maintaining the independence of Persia. It 
would, I think, be more in accordance with our interests, 
as well as with the undertakings which have been given, 
to direct all our efforts towards establishing a strong 
government in Persia, and assisting the gendarmerie to 
perform its duties in a really efficient manner. 

' The administration may, of course, not be sufficiently 
strong for some time to establish order among the tribes 
and inflict the necessary punishment on them, but if we 
steadily pursue our object the reckoning must come 
eventually, and our position will not be seriously affected 
by this delay. 

' The dispatch of an expedition should not be urged 
on the Governor-General of Fars until he is satisfied that 
there has been sufficient time for its preparation, and 
that it has every chance of being successful.' 

And for his general attitude towards Russia, we may 
take a telegram to our Ambassador at St. Petersburg 
(Sir G. Buchanan), sent in January 1913, when it seemed 
as though a ' strong and honest ' ministry was at last on 
the point of being formed. 

' Please take an opportunity of thanking Russian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs for the instructions which 
his Excellency has sent to the Russian Consul at Tabriz.' 
(To suppress some conspirators who professed to have 
Russian support.) 

' You should inform him that I entirely share his view 
as to the grave nature of the Persian situation, which 
makes it necessary for the British and Russian Govern- 
ments to decide at once as to their future policy. M. Sazonof 



MR. SHUSTER AS TREASURER-GENERAL 101 

is, I am sure, no less anxious than myself that the co- 
operation of the two Governments should continue with 
a view to the maintenance of the integrity and indepen- 
dence of Persia. For this purpose our best course is, 
at this moment, to give all possible support to Ala-es- 
Sultaneh and to encourage Motamin-ul-mulk and men 
like him to join the new ministry. I hope M. Sazonof 
may be willing to instruct the Russian Minister at Teheran 
without delay to give assurances similar to those con- 
tained in my telegram to Sir W. Townley of yesterday, 
and generally to extend his cordial support to Ala-es- 
Sultaneh and Motamin-ul-mulk. 

' Perhaps the Russian Government would also show 
their sympathy with the new Cabinet, as soon as it is 
definitely formed, by withdrawing a few of their troops 
from Persia and intimating that the remainder will be 
withdrawn directly order is restored. This would, I am 
sure, produce an excellent effect.' (No. 534.) 

The two telegrams, taken almost at random from 
a great mass, seem to me to sum up Sir Edward Grey's 
policy. As a Liberal and a reasonable man, I cannot con- 
demn it, though I admit that it has failed to achieve its 
full object. It has not made that wrecked ship float ; 
it has only worked disinterestedly and unweariedly to do 
all the little good in its power. I can understand its 
being condemned by certain classes of people. Persian 
Nationalists may be excused for feeling that the best 
thing for them would have been a war with Russia in 
which they should be backed by Great Britain and perhaps 
by Turkey. But they can hardly expect the rest of the 
world to agree with them. I can understand its being 
condemned by various types of active Imperialists, wise 
and unwise. Some of them may think it altogether too 
mild and patient. Some may argue that a vigorous 
military occupation, or even the enlisting of a few thousand 
Bakhtiaris under British officers, would have restored 
order in all the province of Fars, increased British prestige 



102 PERSIA 

and rehabilitated the shaken finances of Southern Persia. 
Some may argue that, as Persia cannot govern herself, 
she offers us a fine chance for extending the Empire. 
Some may say that the only way to deal with Russians 
is to tell them what you want and fight them if they do 
not do it. All these classes of politician have a right to 
attack and denounce Sir Edward Grey for his policy in 
Persia, but Liberals, as far as I can see, have no right. 



9. THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND : OUR 
RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 

We have so far considered Sir E. Grey's policy — -that is, 
the policy approved on the whole by both parties in 
three successive Parliaments, from the very Radical 
House of Commons of 1906 to the more evenly divided 
House of 1910-14 — and found that on its own merits, 
apart from any ulterior motives, it seems a prudent, 
a peaceful, and a liberal-minded policy. We have taken 
it at its supposed weak points, and not touched upon the 
parts that are especially admired. We have said nothing 
about the Congo, nothing about the Putumayo, in both 
of which regions a magnificent work was performed for 
humanity, and performed with such a combination of 
tact and manifest sincerity that it led to singularly little 
international friction. 1 

It needed tact, and it needed conspicuous fairness, to 
bring and prove the most terrible charges against the 
administration of the ' Private Estate ' of the late King 
of the Belgians and against people who should have been 
controlled by the Peruvian Government, without alienat- 
ing the public opinion either of Belgium or Peru. Yet 

1 It is a pleasure to record that in the unveiling of these two 
great scandals the world owes much to two of Sir Edward Grey's 
present opponents, in the Congo to Mr. E. D. Morel, in the 
Putumayo to Sir Roger Casement. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 103 

Sir Edward Grey's policy achieved this. It took the lead- 
ing part in the reform of those horribly oppressed regions, 
and was successful partly because its pressure never 
relaxed, largely because its honesty was above suspicion. 
I have not dwelt on that ; nor yet on the high European 
reputation which our Foreign Minister won for himself 
by the conduct of the Balkan negotiations in 1912-13. 
As Count Mensdorff, the Austrian Ambassador, observed, 
Sir Edward Grey was not only a man who spoke the truth, 
he was a man who made other people know that he spoke 
the truth. The two wars of that year, first the war of 
the Balkan League against Turkey, then the war of 
Bulgaria against the rest of the League, passed, contrary 
to all expectation, without raising a general European 
war. The inflammable material was all handled by 
a conference of ambassadors sitting in London under the 
presidency of Sir E. Grey. Only a man known to be honest 
and devoted to the general interests of Europe would have 
been trusted by the jealous Powers to preside over their 
ambassadors and have the meetings in his own country. 
Only a man who knew himself to be honest would, I think, 
have ventured to put himself in the position of so pre- 
siding, exposed at every moment to sudden questions 
and even traps, where his hidden thoughts, if he had 
them, were liable to be discovered, while the other 
foreign ministers of Europe remained safely hidden behind 
their ambassadors. It would be easy to descant at 
length on these achievements and others. But I have 
preferred to take only those parts of Sir Edward Grey's 
policy which have been most criticized. 

And so far, I have tried to consider them on their 
own merits. I have not urged on their behalf any great 
undercurrent excuse. Yet I might have done so. Some- 
times an astronomer watching certain planets finds that 
they deviate from their proper course ; then he knows 
that there must be present somewhere some vast unseen 
stellar body whose gravitation is wresting them aside. 



104 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

In the case of Grey's policy we know that there was 
such an influence. The extraordinary thing is that it has 
had so comparatively little bad effect. It has made us 
spend huge sums to increase our fleet and our army. 
It has thrown us generally on the defensive. It has 
hindered our active power for good. But it has never, 
as far as I can see, actually wrested our energies into 
an illiberal or malignant channel. 

This influence of course was Germany's Weltpolitik, 
or ' World Policy '. Europe has had to face in this last 
generation a peril rather like that which came from France 
under Napoleon or from the conquering Turks in the 
sixteenth century, but a peril more scientifically prepared 
and more self-conscious. The German Empire, flushed 
with the conquest of Austria in 1866 and of France in 
1870-1, built up for itself the strongest army in the world. 
It desired — intelligibly enough — to have an army so strong 
that it should be as safe from the possibility of invasion 
as if it were surrounded by sea. Unfortunately, having 
acquired such an army, it could not refrain from claiming 
a certain predominance over those nations whose armies 
were of inferior strength. So far this policy, though a 
menace to Europe, was no concern of ours. It only 
became a menace to us when certain further conclusions 
were drawn from it. Germany was, with little doubt, 
if judged by the only standards to which she attached 
importance, the leading nation both of Europe and of 
the world. Her trade and industry seemed to have the 
most solid foundations and to advance in the swiftest 
strides ; her people was the best organized and educated 
and disciplined and at the same time the most contented 
and most enthusiastically loyal ; her philosophers and 
men of science, her historians and philologists, set the 
fashion to all humanity by their learning, yet bowed their 
heads, like little children, before the will of the State ; 
her royal house was the most brilliant in Europe, and the 
nation could still, in the twentieth century, thrill respon- 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 105 

sively to the suggestion that the word of the anointed 
Hohenzollern was the chosen channel for the commands 
of God. Judged by any standard of either the world 
or the spirit Germany felt herself to be the First of Nations, 
but most of all by her own traditional and consecrated 
Prussian standard, the standard of Blood and Iron. 
Let that standard decide ! A nation in this state of mind 
could hardly wait for the slow processes of history or 
bow to the petty restrictions of formal law. Why should 
the best and greatest of nations not advance boldly to the 
throne which was hers both by right of merit and by 
right of conquest ? And if her way was barred on the 
one side by nations which were effete and decadent, and 
on the other by nations which were uncivilized and brutal, 
was the higher Power not free, was she not absolutely 
bound, to strike down the lower ? In the words of 
a famous Prussian Minister of War, who was one of the 
negotiators for the surrender of the French Army at 
Sedan, we have the full case stated : 

' Do not let us forget the civilizing task which the 
decrees of Providence have assigned to us. Just as 
Prussia was destined to be the nucleus of Germany, so 
the regenerated Germany shall be the nucleus of a future 
Empire of the West. And in order that no one may be 
left in doubt, we here proclaim from henceforth that our 
continental nation has a right to the sea, not only to 
the North Sea but to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. 
Hence we intend to absorb one after another all the 
provinces that neighbour on Prussia. We will successively 
annex Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Northern Switzerland ; 
then Trieste and Venice ; finally Northern France from 
the Sambre to the Loire. This programme we fearlessly 
announce. It is not the work of a madman. The Empire 
we intend to found will be no Utopia. We have ready 
to our hands the means of founding it, and no coalition 
in the world can stop us.' 

This utterance of Bronsart von Schellendorf was not, 



106 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

of course, the programme of the Government. But it 
was the programme of a League so numerous and powerful 
that it always influenced and often directed the policy 
of the Government. And it shows what kind of dreams 
hovered before the eyes of German patriots even in the 
days when they had no great navy ; when they were, 
as Count Ernst zu Reventlow puts it, like a man with one 
.leg or an eagle with one wing. 

An army supreme in Europe ; a power so great that 
no European state can move without consulting it : that 
was the achievement of Bismarck. But — here there is 
general agreement between military theorists like Bern- 
hardt well-informed Pan-Germans like Reventlow, and 
moderate and responsible Imperial Chancellors like 
Prince von Biilow — the position won by Bismarck was to 
be only a stepping-stone. Power in Europe was a means 
to Weltmacht, Power in the world. And the Kaiser, from 
the beginning of his reign, is said to have had the firm 
resolve to give Germany a fleet corresponding to her 
army. 1 

We need not look for the words of extremists. The 
policy is announced by von Biilow and by the Kaiser's 
own speeches. ' Sea-power is world-power.' ' The 
future of Germany is on the sea.' ' The trident shall 
pass into our hands.' Von Biilow and Reventlow re- 
peatedly explain the practical difficulty of this policy. 
At present England is the strongest sea-power ; and the 
problem for Germany is not merely to build up a fleet 
capable of dealing with the British fleet, but to do so 
under England's eyes and without England's interference. 
' The fleet was to be built without our coming into conflict 
with England, whom we could not yet oppose at sea.' 2 
There were two great dangers : England's enmity and 

1 Bernhardi, Germany's Next War; Graf Ernst zu Reventlow, 
Deutschlands auswartige Politik, 1888-1913 ; Prince von Biilow, 
Imperial Germany. 

2 Von Biilow, Imperial Germany, p. 18 ; also the following pages. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 107 

England's friendship. ' England's unreserved and certain 
friendship could only have been bought at the price of 
those very international plans for the sake of which we 
should have sought British friendship. It would have 
been propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.' ' The alpha 
and omega of British policy has always been the attain- 
ment and maintenance of English naval supremacy.' 
(Naturally ; since if Great Britain loses command of 
the sea, she dies of starvation in a few weeks ; and owing 
to her ' consistent egoism ', she does not wish this to 
occur.) Therefore the problem for Germany was, by 
long patience and concealment, to undermine Great 
Britain's naval supremacy without her knowing it. Then, 
it might be hoped, Great Britain would be wise enough 
to accept the new situation. If not, the German fleet 
could strike. The German people would heave a long 
sigh and cry ' At last ! ' The day would have come. 1 

It would be easy to multiply statements of this policy 
from the writings of Imperial Chancellors, of the Kaiser 
himself, and from Reventlow. It would be still easier 
to collect the sinister vapourings of various members of 
the German Navy League and the Pan-German League. 
But my object is not to make out a case against Germany ; 
it is only to consider the disturbing effect of German 
ambitions upon British policy. 

This ideal of Seemacht und Weltmacht took shape, 
as is well known, in the German Navy Law of 1900. 
This law nearly doubled the existing Navy and provided 
for a steady increase year by year for some considerable 
time ahead without further consulting of Parliament, 
As a matter of fact Parliament was consulted frequently, 
but only with the object of accelerating, not of questioning, 
the rate of increase. The officially avowed object of this 
naval policy was to give Germany so strong a fleet that 
' even the strongest naval Power should not be able 

1 See Reventlow on their feelings at the time of the Kaiser's 
telegram to President Kriiger, p. 76. 



108 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

to challenge her with any confidence '. In less official 
language it was that, as Germany had the strongest army 
in the world, so she must have the strongest navy in the 
world. The eagle wanted both its wings. 

Sir Edward Grey's general comment on the situation is 
worth quoting. It is so characteristically gentle. ' Now let 
me say this. German strength is by itself a guarantee 
that no other country will desire or seek a quarrel with 
Germany. That is one side of the shield, and one of 
which Germans may well be proud. But there is another 
side of the shield, and that is : If a nation has the biggest 
army in the world, and if it has a very big navy, and is 
going on building a still bigger navy, then it must do 
all in its power to prevent the natural apprehensions 
in the minds of others, who have no aggressive intentions 
themselves, lest that Power, with its army and navy, 
should have aggressive intentions towards them. I do 
not believe in these aggressive designs (of Germany). 
I do not wish to have my words interpreted in that 
sense. But I think it must be realized that other nations 
will be apprehensive and sensitive, and on the look-out 
for any indications of aggression. All we or the other 
neighbours of Germany desire is to live with her on equal 
terms.' (Sir Edward Grey, in the House of Commons, 
November 17, 191 1.) 

However much we might refuse to believe in the exis- 
tence of ' aggressive intentions ', there was clearly in 
existence a new political fact which Great Britain was 
bound in one way or another to meet. Three lines of 
policy, it seems, were possible. 

1. A force-against-force policy : as Germany meant 
to increase her navy till it was strong enough to strike 
us down, our policy might be to provoke a quarrel and 
strike her down first. This was the policy of a ' pre- 
ventive war ', advocated occasionally by the more ex- 
citable ultra-imperialists in England, but essentially 
too immoral to be tolerated by the mass of the British 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 109 

people. Reventlow observes that if the British Govern- 
ment had wished for a ' preventive war ' in the earlier 
years of the century, nothing would have been easier 
than to find an occasion for it. (Deutschlands auswdrtige 
Politik, p. 253.) 

2. A policy of mere submission. I have never seen 
this policy advocated by any serious person, unless 
perhaps Mr. Brailsford could be accused of doing so in 
a paradoxical passage of his brilliant book The War of 
Steel and Gold (pp. 33 ff.). He tries there to argue that, 
even at the worst, suppose Germany completely con- 
quered all opposition, nobody would really be a penny the 
worse, while at the same time he expresses his personal 
belief that ' there will be no more wars among the six 
great Powers ' (p. 35). The passage was written early 
in 1914, and I think we may perhaps assume that the 
author's opinion of the comparative harmlessness of being 
conquered by Germany has been as much changed as his 
belief that there would be no more European wars. On 
the whole, I do not think it necessary to argue against 
the view that Great Britain should have said to Germany : 
' You want to have the biggest fleet in the world ? Well, 
have it, and much good may it do you ! We will not 
compete.' 

3. A policy of reasonable and pacific common sense. This 
was the policy actually followed. We said to Germany : 
' If you have any grievance against us, tell us and we will 
try to remove it : but you must understand that the 
command of the sea is to us a matter of life and death, 
and we cannot afford to lose it. Our navy is a danger to 
nobody, certainly not to Germany ; because we deliber- 
ately keep a very small army, so that it is utterly impos- 
sible for us to attack any first-class Power. But your 
navy appears to threaten us in a vital point.' 

This policy took two forms : an attempt to get into 
cordial and frank relations with Germany, so as to settle 
any reasonable grievance which she might feel ; and an 



no THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

attempt to come to some agreement for a proportional 
reduction of armaments. The two lines overlap, but 
may for clearness' sake be treated separately. 

Let us take first, as simplest and most definite, the 
question of armaments. Great Britain's line was clear. 
' We wish for no aggression, no increase of the empire ; 
we are ready for any treaties of conciliation or arbitra- 
tion ; but our national safety depends on the command 
of the sea. Therefore, if your intentions are peaceful, as 
we quite believe they are, let us have an understanding 
about armaments. We will make no attempt whatever 
to rival your army, and we ask you not to try to outstrip 
our navy. Short of outstripping it, or putting our com- 
mand of the sea in danger, tell us what arrangement will 
suit you, and we can reduce our fleets together. And 
meantime we will give you any security you like that we 
will not attack you or enter any combination which aims 
at attacking you. But, we warn you, if you insist on 
building faster and faster, we shall build too and endea- 
vour to keep up our full superiority. That means that 
we must both continue ruining ourselves on naval arma- 
ments until the race is checked either by a European war 
or a domestic revolution.' 

Our record on the disarmament question is above 
reproach. In 1898 the Czar brought the matter forward 
and proposed an International Conference for the re- 
duction of armaments. Mr. Goschen, as First Lord 
of the Admiralty, agreed to accept a reduction if other 
Powers would frame a scheme. By the time of the 
Second Hague Conference, in 1907, Sir Edward Grey 
being then Foreign Secretary, we had gone further. 
We risked taking the initial step, and announced before- 
hand, in July, 1906, a large reduction of our Navy, 
in the hope that other Powers might be induced to 
follow our example. We reduced our programme twenty- 
five per cent, in battleships, sixty per cent, in large 
destroyers, and thirty-eight per cent, in submarines. 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY in 

This step was all the bolder since the Germans had, 
immediately before, amended their programme by the 
addition of six large cruisers. Lord Haldane went to 
Berlin to press further the effect of our example. He was 
told that Germany would not discuss the reduction of 
armaments, and would not attend the Hague Conference 
at all if that subject was to be there considered. Another 
attempt was made in Berlin by King Edward himself, in 
conjunction with Lord Hardinge. It was rejected no 
less summarily. Other nations, they were told, might 
feel the burden of armaments too much for them. Ger- 
many did not ; and meant to have both her army and 
navy as large as she thought fit. 

The British Prime Minister, Sir H. Campbell-Banner- 
man, still persevered. It might be that the peace-feeling 
in Europe would be strong enough even to influence 
Germany. The Social Democrats and the remains of the 
Liberal parties would surely respond. He wrote himself 
an article in the Nation (March 2, 1907), urging the cause 
of disarmament, and expressing his willingness to make 
further reductions in the British fleet if the other Powers 
would co-operate. He made this proposal officially to 
the seven chief naval Powers. The Russian jurist, 
Professor Maartens, visited the Courts of Europe with the 
same object. But Germany's official answer was given 
by the Chancellor in April, 1907 : ' The German Govern- 
ment refused to participate in any such discussion.' 
The whole subject had to be ruled out of the Hague 
Conference. 

There was a further increase of the German fleet this 
year. In the next King Edward again visited Berlin, 
and approached the subject of reduction of armaments. 
The Kaiser's answer was that no discussion of naval 
armaments with a foreign Government could be tolerated 
by Germany. His tone seems to have been just that of 
Reventlow : the proposal itself was an insult. The 
blood of the latter boils to recount the story how an 



ii2 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

English midshipman once said to a German cadet, ' We 
have the fleet, and you have the army.' Where the 
insult lies is a little difficult for an outsider to see ; but 
an insult it is, and one which, Reventlow thanks God, 
can never be repeated (p. 296). 

It is this feeling which explains a speech of Prince 
von Biilow in December 1908, where he denies that 
definite proposals for the limitation of armaments had 
ever been made to the German Government. They had 
not been made, because, as soon as the subject was 
opened, Germany refused to listen and cut the speaker 
short. As a matter of fact, there were great suspicions 
of secret shipbuilding in this year and the next, and in 
1909 facts which came to the knowledge of Mr. McKenna, 
then First Lord of the Admiralty, made him demand an 
unusual increase of the British programme. His fears 
were, as a matter of fact, not realized, though the state- 
ments of fact which he made were quite accurate. But 
the great strain produced both here and in Germany by 
these suspicions made the situation even more dangerous 
than before. Sir Edward Grey therefore made a very 
characteristic proposal. He suggested, since Germany 
would not agree to any limitation, that at least both 
countries should prove their good faith by letting one 
another see what they were building. He proposed that 
the naval attaches in London and Berlin should be 
allowed from time to time to see the actual stage of con- 
struction reached by the capital ships in dock. Arrange- 
ments could be made for preventing the disclosure of 
any details which were particularly secret, and the step 
would obviously allay anxiety and prevent groundless 
panics. The German Government refused. They did 
not wish, it seems, to allay the strain. 

It is important to understand German feeling on this 
point. It is doubtless in origin a theory conjured up to 
justify the policy which Germany's instinctive ambition 
craved, the ' Calvary ', in Reventlow's words, which she 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 113 

had irrevocably set herself to climb. But from whatever 
cause it arose, it has been for many years a genuine 
feeling. To the German Imperialist the true ideal is to 
put forth the extreme of human effort in the service of 
the Fatherland ; peace, arbitration, honest treaties, rules 
of war, everything that in any way limits the need of 
effort and slackens the tensity of the struggle, is in itself 
contemptible, and is only sought by nations who are 
decadent and slack in moral fibre. Reventlow remarks 
how the German-Americans lose their true Deutschtum. 
They even ' lose their comprehension of Germany ' to 
such an extent that a deputation of them once came to 
Berlin to plead the cause of the Taft Arbitration Treaty ! 
' But that bubble is long burst ! ' (p. 219) 

The British overtures for the reduction of armaments 
continued unabated down to Mr. Churchill's proposal in 
19 12 for a ' naval holiday '. All were refused, and the 
two nations were thrown back on undisguised and un- 
mitigated competition in shipbuilding. But after 1907 
the naval question begins to merge into the larger question 
of friendship with Germany. We will therefore go back 
to that subject. 

Up to 1902 or 1903, as Reventlow repeatedly em- 
phasizes, Great Britain was frequently in the position of 
suing for German friendship. But, as we saw above, 
Germany regarded such friendship as a trap (p. 78). Her 
aim was ' World-power by means of Sea-power ' ; and 
friendship of a sincere or permanent kind with Great 
Britain could only be obtained by the sacrifice of this 
policy. After 1903 Great Britain began gradually to 
realize that her difficulties with Germany were due not to 
any particular points in dispute. Such points as there 
once were had practically all been settled long before, 
especially in the period of ' graceful concessions ' about 
1890, when Lord Salisbury carried through the peaceful 
partition of disputed territories in Africa and gave 

1844 H 



ii4 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

Germany the island of Heligoland. The present diffi- 
culties were due to some settled resolve of Germany's. 
We began gradually to see what that resolve was : 
never quite to quarrel till the Day came, yet never 
to come to terms ; but it was long before we realized 
the enormous force with which it was held. Not all 
Germans, it was justly argued, agreed with the Kaiser 
and the majority of the Reichstag ; and even the 
Kaiser might change his mind. In 1906 when the Camp- 
bell-Bannerman Government took office, it showed the 
spirit of its policy by its very first acts. It made a deter- 
mined move at the Hague Conference towards an agree- 
ment for disarmament and pacification, and at the same 
time it opened confidential conversations with Germany 
to see in what way the two Powers could re-establish 
cordial relations. Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, the Under- 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, is described as ' making 
entreaties to Germany '. But fortunately, ' Germany 
succeeded in foiling any such discussion ' (Reventlow, 
pp. 280-5). In 1906 came Lord Haldane's visit to 
Berlin, to try to improve Anglo-German relations. No 
better move could have been devised. Lord Haldane was 
a man universally respected in England and known to be 
persona grata in Germany. Though he afterwards showed 
himself a great War Minister, he was an earnest friend of 
peace. The one objection urged by political opponents 
to his selection as negotiator was the possibility that his 
friendship for Germany might lead him too far. But, as 
a matter of fact, he was simply baffled at the outset. 
The great men whom he met in Berlin had other aims, 
and aims which were not compatible with friendship for 
Great Britain. In the following month a vain attempt 
was made to revive the negotiations by the visit of King 
Edward and Lord Hardinge ; it was repeated in 1908, 
but was equally fruitless. 

At one time indeed the proposals for something like 
friendship seemed much nearer to accomplishment, and 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 115 

in this case the first move came from Germany. In 1909, 
after von Billow's fall, the present Chancellor, Bethmann- 
Hollweg, came into power, and one of his earliest actswas 
an attempt to form an understanding with Great Britain. 
It is not clear whether he was in part sincere, but thwarted 
by another influence, or whether he was merely scheming 
to break up the Triple Entente. He suggested in general 
terms that there might be some understanding about the 
two navies, if it could be based on a general political 
friendship. British hopes rose high, but of course by this 
time the hopes were accompanied by suspicions. 

Bethmann-Hollweg's naval proposal, the one side of the 
agreement which could be practically tested, amounted 
to nothing at all. He refused even to consider any re- 
duction or any modification of the Navy Law ; at most 
he was willing to discuss ' retardation ' of shipbuilding, 
provided that the total number of ships already arranged 
for 1918 were built by that year. At a later stage in the 
negotiations, however, even ' retardation ' was ruled out. 
The Kaiser informed the British Ambassador that he 
personally would on no account agree to any arrangement 
by which Germany was debarred from increasing her 
naval programme as she chose. Thus the naval proposal 
came to nothing. 

The Chancellor's general proposal of co-operation 
centred in an engagement that, in the event of either 
Power being attacked by a third Power or group of Powers, 
the Power not attacked should remain neutral. This 
sounds moderate in itself ; but one observes at once its 
utterly differem character from that of the two Ententes 
at which Great Britain had arrived. The Ententes were 
based on a full and sincere discussion of all the points at 
issue between Britain and France or Britain and Russia, 
and on the friendly relation which arose out of the loyal 
settlement of those differences. There was a promise of 
diplomatic support in certain cases, and a general under- 
standing that neither Power would do anything behind 

H 2 



n6 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

the back of the other. But there was no mention of war, 
and no obligation to any particular attitude in the event 
of war. Where such a question subsequently arose, as in 
the Morocco crisis, it arose from new events in European 
politics : there was no military agreement in the Ententes. 
But German diplomacy, characteristically, puts war in 
the forefront. We were to promise neutrality in case 
Germany was ever, under any circumstances, attacked. 
Of course we had no faintest intention of joining in an 
attack on Germany, and we offered clear undertakings to 
that effect. But the danger was that, by intrigue or 
by the interplay of alliances, Germany might manoeuvre 
some Power into making the first formal attack. As the 
summer of 1914 showed, it was always easy for Germany, 
by declaring war on Russia, to compel France to ' attack ' 
her ; and indeed she did then, though in a half-hearted 
manner, accuse France of making the first attack. The 
proposed treaty would in these circumstances have bound 
us to be neutral. True, we might have taken the line 
which Italy took, and argued that the war was really an 
aggressive war on the part of Germany, not an attack by 
France, and that our treaty did not hold. But one great 
end would in the meantime have been attained by Germany. 
The confidence between France and Great Britain would 
have been sapped. France knew that we would not back 
her in any aggression, she knew that she herself contem- 
plated no aggression. But she would have been justly 
suspicious if we concluded a treaty with her one great 
enemy, binding us to be neutral in certain contingencies. 
As Sir Edward Grey said to the German Ambassador, the 
way for the German Government to get into friendly 
relations with us was to improve its own relations with 
France ; not to make arrangements for fighting France 
while we stood aside. We had indeed no obligations 
with any Power which interfered with the formation of 
new ties. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman had expressed it : 
' Our stock of good feeling and international goodwill is 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY 117 

not exhausted by France. Let us hope that this wise 
policy will be extended. There is the great Empire of 
Russia. Then again there is Germany.' But it appeared 
that the German proposals in this case involved exactly 
what we could not accept. ' One does not make new 
friendships worth having by deserting old ones. New 
friendships by all means let us make, but not at the 
expense of those we have.' (Grey, Nov. 27, 1911.) 

After prolonged negotiations the proposals of 1909 fell 
through. They achieved certain minor ends, facilitating, 
for instance, the ultimate co-operation of Great Britain 
in the amended scheme for the Bagdad Railway, 1 but in 
the main they left an unsatisfactory impression. In 
August 1910, however, the British Government returned 
to the charge. They agreed not to bother Germany any 
more about the reduction of her naval programme, and 
proposed an understanding on the basis of three stipula- 
tions : (1) A ' temporary retardation ' of the shipbuilding ; 

1 The Anatolian Railway Company had made their line as 
far as Konieh in Cilicia. The German Group then obtained 
(in 1903) a concession to make an extension, about 1,500 miles in 
all, from Konieh across the Taurus and on by Aleppo, the 
Euphrates, Mosul, the Tigris Valley to Bagdad, and thence on 
to Bosra at the head of the Persian Gulf. Great Britain of course 
objected to the presence of German influence on the Persian Gulf, 
more especially as the objects of the railway were fully as much 
political as commercial. Hence we opposed the railway scheme. 
The Company then, finding its capital insufficient, tried to float 
a loan in Paris and London. The British Government seemed 
inclined to favour the idea of British participation, till it was 
discovered that the constitution of the Railway established 
German control in perpetuity. In 191 1, as a concession to Great 
Britain, the Company gave up its right to build beyond Bagdad, 
subject to the condition that if the railway were afterwards 
extended towards the Persian Gulf the Bagdad Railway Company 
should have as large a share in the extension as any single non- 
Ottoman nation. The various railway concessions in the Turkish 
Empire present a curious story of intrigue and corruption. Some 
of the lines curl round like serpents for no reason except that 
they are paid from the Turkish taxes at so much a kilometre. 



n8 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

(2) meantime no increase in the programme and no 
building in secret : free exchange of information about 
the actual progress of work in the dockyards ; (3) assur- 
ances that we had no hostile intentions towards Germany 
and had made no agreement with any Power which con- 
tained in it anything directed against Germany. Germany 
refused both (1) and (2), the Kaiser himself explaining 
that under no circumstances would he consent to any 
arrangement which bound Germany not to increase her 
naval programme as and when she chose. As for the 
third offer, Germany proposed further discussion, and the 
British Government at length, with much disappointment, 
assented to the plan of discussing a political agreement 
without any cessation or slackening of the naval rivalry. 
The proposals of the German Chancellor are described 
in Sir Edward Grey's speech in the House of Commons on 
March 13, 1911. They amounted to an arrangement 
' more comprehensive, far-reaching, and intimate ' than 
any arrangement, short of actual alliance, that England 
had with any other Power. Such an arrangement was 
likely to cause misunderstanding in France and Russia. 
The British agreements with France and Russia were not 
based on a general political formula. They were settle- 
ments of specific questions, and the settlements had trans- 
formed relations of friction into relations of friendship. 
There was nothing exclusive in these friendships ; the 
British Government had seen with unmixed satisfaction 
the settlement of some disputes between France and 
Germany and between Russia and Germany. Why 
should not the same thing be attempted between Germany 
and England ? ' 

Thus Grey's policy is to reject a special and close treaty 
with Germany, specifically contemplating war, which 
might prove inconsistent with Great Britain's friendly 
relations with France and Russia, and would certainly 
leave Germany able to wage war upon those Powers with 
a freer hand. He pressed instead for a general settlement 



OUR RELATIONS WITH GERMANY rig 

of disputes, which would bring Germany into harmony 
with the other Powers. In other words, we would co- 
operate with Germany in the maintenance of peace and the 
existing order ; we would not co-operate with her, nor 
promise her a free hand, in any attempt to overthrow the 
existing order and assert her supremacy over Europe. 

This was not what Germany desired. As Reventlow 
puts it, Germany had already in 1905 stood at the parting 
of the ways. At that time Great Britain had first appealed 
to Germany for a reduction of armaments or a naval 
understanding, and, being refused, had replied by building 
the Dreadnought and establishing a naval base on the 
North Sea. British friendship, says Reventlow, could 
easily have been secured. The ways of Germany's 
foreign policy would have been made smooth, but she 
would have had to accept British naval supremacy. 
She preferred, with full consciousness, ' to build for her 
foreign politics and diplomacy a Calvary which must, 
nolens volens, be climbed ' (p. 251). 

In 1912 Lord Haldane again visited Berlin and attempted 
to negotiate the terms of friendship. He pleaded the 
cause of naval retrenchment. What was the use of the 
two Powers entering into a solemn agreement of amity, 
if both were immediately to increase their battle-fleets 
as a measure of precaution against their new friends ? 
The pleading was useless. As a matter of fact Germany 
chose the moment of Lord Haldane's visit to announce 
very large increases in both Navy and Army. 

There remained the possibility of a political agreement, 
apart from any reduction of the navies. But Germany's 
terms by now were more explicit and sweeping. She 
wanted an unconditional pledge that Great Britain would 
maintain neutrality in the event of Germany being 
engaged in war. She wanted to climb her Hill of Skulls 
more untrammelled ; to be able to make war, it may be, 
on France or Russia, or to annex Belgium or Holland or 
Denmark, with the security that Great Britain was bought 



120 THE PERIL IN THE BACKGROUND 

off beforehand. One is surprised that a responsible 
Minister could have expected us to accept such a proposal. 
He may have thought that our naval burden was even 
more crushing to us than it really was, and that we would 
abandon everything, including our honour and our future 
safety, for the sake of a breathing space and Germany's 
temporary friendship. And in any case one is reminded 
of a saying of Bismarck's, quoted by von Billow : ' If 
Mr. X makes you a proposal which is obviously advan- 
tageous to him and ruinous to you, it by no means follows 
that Mr. X is a fool. It only follows that you will be one 
if you accept.' 

We would do nothing to make Germany's path towards 
war easier. But we continued to the last moment to 
make proposals for extending our friendly relations to the 
Powers not in the Entente. All through the Balkan 
crisis Grey did what he could to break down the lines of 
division between the two great diplomatic groups, the 
Entente and the Alliance. Our relations with Italy were 
cordial ; our relations with Austria were good. We 
worked loyally with Germany. We encouraged special 
conversations between Russia and Austria, the more so 
because such conversations made a bridge between the 
Entente and the Alliance. ' We have the strongest desire 
to see those who are our friends on good terms with other 
Powers : we regard it without jealousy and with satis- 
faction' (Grey, March 13, 1911). 'Whatever separate 
diplomatic groups there are, I do not think that ought to 
prevent frankness and exchange of views when ques- 
tions of mutual interest arise. And if that takes place, 
separate diplomatic groups need not necessarily be in 
opposing diplomatic camps' (Grey, July 10, 1912). 



121 



io. SIR EDWARD GREY AS A STATESMAN 

That was Sir Edward Grey's hope, and it has proved 
false. I see divers high-spirited traffickers in other 
people's blood exulting in their newspapers in the boast 
that they never wished for the welfare of any one outside 
England, never for a moment believed the word of any 
German, and never had the weakness to work or hope for 
European peace. Against such people I will not defend 
Sir Edward Grey. I doubt if he would value their 
approval. 

I see also that what was regarded as one of the greatest 
triumphs of his policy was not entirely due to him. It is 
supposed that, all through the several Balkan crises, from 
1911 to 1913, it was his guidance of the negotiations 
which saved Europe from the imminent danger of the war. 
One suspects now, somewhat bitterly, that perhaps there 
was a greater contributing cause. The dangerous elements 
now prevailing among the Central Powers perhaps wished 
to put off the war a little later, so they allowed him to 
preserve the peace. We know from Signor Giolitti x that 
already on August 9, 1913, long before the murder at 
Serajevo, Austria had invited Italy to support her in 
taking military action against Serbia and so precipitating 
the Great War, and Italy had refused. It is curious to 
think that some of the courtly praises lavished on Grey, 
as the preserver of the peace of Europe, by divers German 
and Austrian dignitaries, were actually uttered after this 
scheme had been proposed. The mischief-makers allowed 
Sir Edward Grey to keep the peace as long as it suited 
them. When their time came they insisted on having 
their war, and he was powerless to prevent them. After 
all it takes only one to make a quarrel ; it needs two to 
preserve the peace. 

1 Giolitti in the Italian Chamber, December 5, 191 4 : Collected 
Documents, p. 401. 



122 SIR EDWARD GREY 

Sir Edward Grey did not succeed in preserving peace. 
He failed in the greatest of all his aims, as, in those cir- 
cumstances, any human being was bound to fail. He 
succeeded only in the two next greatest. By his honesty 
he had convinced the overwhelming mass of neutral 
opinion that our cause was just and the war none of our 
making ; by his prudence and loyal dealing he had made 
sure that, when the storm burst, the cause of peace and 
public right was upheld by three of the strongest Powers 
of the world in confident alliance. A just cause, the 
sympathies of the world, and powerful allies : if war must 
come, it is something to possess these. 

In reading through considerable masses of state papers 
and speeches and similar documents, one sees emerging 
a fairly clear conception of the character of this man and 
this policy which have steered Great Britain for nine years 
through the midst of such deadly seas. Sir Edward Grey, 
like his chief, is sometimes said to be a man of ' negative 
character '. The charge is true enough if a character be 
negative in which there is no self-seeking, no vanity, no 
display or self-advertisement. In that sense he is negative. 
His speeches are rare and not eloquent. I doubt if there 
was ever a great Foreign Minister who was so little of a 
wit. Bismarck was a wit of the first water. Talleyrand 
was the prince of all wits. Lord Salisbury was full of 
daring epigram. Lord Palmerston had his bold taunts 
and jests. Lord Lansdowne, Lord Granville, Lord Rose- 
bery, were famous for the courtly polish of their phrases. 
But in all Grey's speeches there is hardly to be found a 
single jest, a single purple patch, a single brilliant indis- 
cretion. As speeches they are almost dull. Yet he has 
been listened to with an interest, and followed with a trust, 
that can have been the lot of very few Foreign Ministers. 
The fact is that British foreign policy during the last 
twelve years has been a very serious business. Men hung 
upon Grey's words because they wanted to know exactly 
where our foreign policy stood, and men trusted him 



AS A STATESMAN 123 

because they felt that he cared sincerely and ceaselessly 
for the two things for which we all cared. Those two 
things are British honour and British interests. The 
average Liberal-minded Englishman knew that those 
words bore to Grey the same meaning as to himself : 
that national honour meant real honour and not vain- 
glory ; national interests meant the real interests of the 
whole nation and not the gains of adventure or in- 
trigue. 

The name of diplomat has just now an evil savour. 
Unjustly, I think : for this war which is draining our life- 
blood was certainly not due to anything so superficial as 
the faults of diplomats. But it seems strange, to one who 
has studied the record, that the critics who specially 
object to diplomats should concentrate their disapproval 
upon Grey. He seems so unlike a diplomat. The tra- 
ditional qualities of the diplomat, the polished surface, the 
social brilliance, the narrow ruthless outlook, the skill in 
moving gracefully among traps and mines, the smiling 
falsehoods and coups of unscrupulous cleverness — all that 
we associate with Metternich or Talleyrand or Bismarck, 
seem so utterly opposite to the characteristics of this quiet, 
able, unpretending Englishman of country tastes, simple 
in word and thought, a little tongue-tied and shy, learned 
in birds and good at fishing, and kindling quickly to 
warm sympathy in all questions of labour. 

Yet to certain circles in England Grey is the typical 
figure not only of diplomacy, but of that specially odious 
form of it called ' secret diplomacy '. It is curious how 
a telling phrase will flash through a whole country, 
untested and unquestioned. The war took us by sur- 
prise. We were amazed, horrified, we could not under- 
stand, and we wanted somebody or something to blame. 
The Germans ... it was easy enough to blame them. 
But what of our own Ministers ? What were they paid 
for, what were they trusted for, if they steered us into 
utter disaster like this ? Why had we never expected 



124 SIR EDWARD GREY 

what was coming ? It was ' secret diplomacy ' ; and 
there must never again be any ' secret diplomacy '. 

Now this is not the place to discuss at length how far 
it may be possible, in the consideration of delicate inter- 
national affairs, where there is often a good deal of 
gunpowder lying about and waiting for a spark, to 
abolish altogether the element of confidential conver- 
sation between responsible persons. I confess that the 
full ideal seems to me utterly impracticable. There 
must be the possibility of confidential discussions which 
both parties promise not to repeat ; the best we can 
hope for is far short of the absolute abolition of secrecy. 

We can perhaps aim at two things : (i) We may press 
the claim that, in normal circumstances, the House of 
Commons, and thereby the public, should have more 
knowledge and more control over Foreign Politics than 
has sometimes been the case. Such knowledge and 
control would not have had the slightest effect in avert- 
ing or delaying the present war ; but a general interest 
and understanding of Foreign Affairs would doubtless 
produce a healthier tone in the nation generally and is 
certainly part of the natural equipment of an intelligent 
democracy. (2) We might also demand, in normal cir- 
cumstances, as a perfectly fixed rule, that no binding 
engagement to a foreign Power should ever be made 
without the assent of the House of Commons. 

Let us examine Sir Edward Grey's record by these 
two tests. If we take the second rule first, we shall find 
that it is one which he has on every occasion expressly 
asserted and followed. ' I have assured the House— 
and the Prime Minister has assured the House — more 
than once, that if any crisis such as this arose we should 
come before the House of Commons and be able to say 
to the House that it was free to decide what the British 
attitude should be ; we would have no secret engage- 
ment which we should spring upon the House ; we 
would not tell the House that, because we had entered 



AS A STATESMAN 125 

into that engagement, there was an obligation of honour 
upon the country.' Those are Grey's words on August 3, 
191-4 ; and the above pages will show the dogged deter- 
mination with which, under all kinds of pressure, he 
insisted on keeping his hands always free and never 
compromising the country which he served. That the 
course of events in themselves sometimes grew into a 
kind of obligation is a fact which no Foreign Minister 
can avert. 

So much for the second demand ; what of the first ? 
Let me quote the words of an able and learned Irish 
Nationalist who has been particularly prominent in 
pressing for greater opportunities for the discussion and 
control of Foreign Affairs by the House of Commons. 
Mr. Swift MacNeill on May 29, 1911, said : ' The success 
of the present Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward Grey) has 
been very great. The secret of that success has been 
that he has taken the House of Commons into his con- 
fidence on Foreign Affairs to a greater extent than has 
any other gentleman in his position. ... To one who has 
served under many Foreign Secretaries it is quite refresh- 
ing to see the Foreign Secretary, when he is there, on 
the Treasury Bench. My recollection of the first fifteen 
years of my parliamentary life is that foreign affairs were 
scrupulously hidden from the House of Commons ; that 
we were kept deliberately in the dark about them. When 
the Prime Minister also held the office of Foreign Minister 
there was an Under-Secretary on the Treasury Bench 
. . . who had commands from him not to answer supple- 
mentary questions in regard to Foreign Policy. . . . Now 
all that is changed. We have as Foreign Secretary one 
of ourselves, a Member of the House of Commons and 
a thorough House of Commons man, ready, so far as he 
can, to answer all questions, and to give us, as far as he 
can, proper assurances as to how matters stand.' 

I do not pretend that Mr. Swift MacNeill 's words are con- 
clusive ; but they amount to a pretty strong testimonial, 



126 SIR EDWARD GREY 

coming from one whose main object in addressing the 
House was to urge the need for greater publicity and 
for some regular system by which Foreign Affairs should 
be communicated to the House. 

Yet one can see how it arose, this queer delusion 
which associates Sir Edward Grey with some special 
degree of secrecy in diplomacy rather than with the exact 
opposite. People remember vaguely the old days when 
Foreign Politics formed the great arena of party struggles ; 
when Palmerston stood at bay for four hours at a stretch 
defending his dashing jingoism against Bright and Cobden; 
when the whole country rang with Gladstone's fury at 
Lord Beaconsfield's alleged condonation of the Bulgarian 
atrocities and the Opposition, in Lord Hartington's 
words, ' pegged away night after night ' till the Conserva- 
tive Government fell. When the situation is such that 
Opposition and Government are of one mind, there is 
naturally less public excitement and less debate. And 
there is another fact about the foreign situation in recent 
years which has had an even greater influence. In 
Palmerston's days, in Gladstone's days, most of the issues 
at stake, though grave and thrilling, were not absolutely 
issues of life and death for Great Britain. (The Indian 
Mutiny perhaps was, and about that there was little 
contemporary discussion.) When a common peril reaches 
certain dimensions, people cease to quarrel and argue ; 
they hold together and are silent. And the peril which 
has overhung our foreign relations for the last twelve 
years was a peril so awful that wise men were mostly 
willing to measure their words and avoid the possibility 
of fanning any dangerous smoke into flame. No one can 
read the debates of the last few years on Foreign Politics 
in the House of Commons without feeling that the House 
was under some heavy shadow and members' tongues 
not moving freely. 

This shadow, this overhanging peril, must never be 
forgotten in any judgement which we pass on Sir Edward 



AS A STATESMAN 127 

Grey's conduct of our foreign affairs. There is a phrase 
of ancient medicine which we can well apply to it : it 
is ' sound in the nobler parts '. So much is, to my judge- 
ment, beyond question. If here and there on some point 
of detail he has not driven as clever a bargain as he 
might ; if he has not stood up to our friends Russia and 
France as defiantly as some of his less responsible critics 
would have done ; even if, here and there, he has not 
pressed fearlessly forward in support of some weak 
nation to which British liberal sympathies went naturally 
forth ; if under his guidance, with all our enormous 
naval expenditure and prestige, Great Britain has some- 
times seemed to have little spare strength for the running 
of avoidable risks or the championing of disinterested 
causes ; let those criticize him who can still say that 
he over-rated our danger. The rest of us will only be 
grateful for ever to one who through all these years of 
crisis acted justly and sought no aggrandizement, who 
kept faith with his friends and worked for a good under- 
standing with his enemies, who never spoke a rash word 
to bring the peril nearer, and never neglected a precaution 
to meet it when it should come. 



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